Roswell
by arainymonday
Summary: In 1947, a spaceship crashes in Roswell, New Mexico. In 2002, incubation pods left behind open and aliens begin living among us. In 2012, I died, and then my life began. I'm Kurt Hummel, and five days ago I died. After that, things got really weird. Roswell AU. A Roswell factsheet is included in the first chapter.
1. Something's Coming

******Title: **Roswell******  
Rating:** R******  
Warnings: **strong language, scenes of a sexual nature, some intense violence including homophobia and bullying, character deaths  
******Pairings: **Klaine, Santina, other canon mentioned  
******Spoilers:** possible all episodes, both series  
**Author's Note:** This story is a fusion between _Glee_ and _Roswell_. If you're not familiar with the TV show Roswell and want some background information, you can find a factsheet below. It's not necessary to read that, though. I explain everything you need to know in the story. If you are familiar with _Roswell_, prepare yourself for some differences big and small. If you find anything in the story confusing, please do ask about it in a review or on my Tumblr (arainymonday).

Updates will come as my betas (the amazing mischief7manager and asimplequirk) and I edit chapters. Expect to see a new chapter about once a month.

I hope you enjoy the story!

* * *

**ROSWELL FACT SHEET**

This is a fusion story inserting _Glee_ characters into the _Roswell_ world/story. You don't need to know anything about _Roswell_ to enjoy this story because it's all explained in the text. However, if you want a brief background, I've typed up a basic summary and guide for you. Be aware, there are unavoidable minor spoilers here.

_Roswell _is a television show that aired from 1999-2002. The premise of the show is that aliens crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, and they left behind alien-human hybrids in incubation pods. The aliens came out of the pods when they were children, and the story begins when they are in high school. The main storyline is a romance between an alien, Max, and a human, Liz.

The aliens in _Roswell_ are exactly what the conspiracies tell us they are. They are little gray creatures who fly around in saucer-shaped spaceships. They possess the ability to shapeshift into human form, and they live among us. The alien-human hybrids look human, but have special abilities such as healing, telekinesis, molecular manipulation, and moderate forms of mind control including entering dreams and memory modification. Not all aliens have all these abilities.

There are some physiological differences between humans and the hybrids. For instance, the hybrids have a very dull sense of taste, so they put Tabasco sauce on everything to give it a stronger flavor – hamburgers, lemonade, chocolate bars, _everything_. Mainly, however, they have the same basic biology as humans.

The hybrids are aware that they are aliens and that they came from the crashed spaceship, but they do not know their full history or their purpose.

When I was in high school, this was THE show that my friends and I talked about all the time. If you decide to watch _Roswell_, please judge it by the first season. The second season was a hot mess, and the third/final season barely redeemed it. I still think it's a great show with a fantastic premise and a really beautiful love story.

* * *

**ROSWELL**

**PART ONE**

**SOMETHING'S COMING**

_September 25_

_I'm Kurt Hummel, and five days ago I died. After that, things got really weird._

* * *

**CRASHDOWN**

The week preceding the Crash Festival brings a lot of fanatics to Roswell, New Mexico. Kurt Hummel knows this better than most because he's been waiting on them at the Crashdown Cafe. He's been having a little bit of fun with them between delivering their orders and leaving the check. He shows them a photograph – or, more accurately, a photo manipulation a third grader with Photoshop could have created – that he says his grandmother took at the crash site in 1947 just before the government arrived to cordon off, clean up, and classify the event. They're just crazy enough to believe it might be true, and the hungry awe on their faces is enough to put Kurt in a fantastic mood despite the ache in his feet.

It's a typical September Sunday in Roswell, New Mexico with the dry heat, dust, and intense sunlight painting the whole world a miserable neutral hue. Kurt has lived here his entire life. Nothing more strange than the odd UFO enthusiasts' annual visit has ever happened in this little town. Until today.

As Kurt comes back around behind the counter where the fry cooks serve up dishes with names like the Sigourney Weaver and the Will Smith onto the metal shelves beneath burning heat lamps and the waiters scoop ice cream out of the giant vanilla vats to mix up Green Martian milkshakes and Blood of Alien smoothies, his best friend, Tina Cohen-Chang, shakes her head and laughs.

"You're terrible, Kurt."

Tina is a sweet, shy girl with a flawless complexion and symmetrical features. She hides behind a fake stutter that only Kurt knows about, multi-colored streaks in her long black hair, and Goth clothes when she's not in uniform.

Kurt is a self-described fashionista, but even he has to admit the uniforms at the Crashdown are cute. The sage color leaves something to be desired, but it's the headband with alien antennae and silver aprons shaped like alien faces with the black eye slit pockets that really make the outfit. Maybe it's just a little kitschy, but Kurt designed them when he was eight-years-old, so he thinks he deserves a break.

His family has owned the Crashdown since before 1947 when it was simply called Hummel's Diner, and while normally Kurt would bemoan the selling out-slash-cashing in on a science fiction hoax, the Crashdown's revenue puts him in designer clothes when he's not working, and he really loves designer clothes. Also, he loves the alien antennae headband, but he'd never admit that to anyone.

Kurt looks nothing like his tanned, athletic classmates at West Roswell High. He's pale, hence the sage and silver ensemble doing little for his complexion, and has to slather on sunblock during his morning moisturizing routine to keep from turning brick red from simply going about his day. A growth spurt and a rigorous pursuit to learn every Beyoncé dance number over the summer has left him tall with lean muscles. He apparently shakes his hips like a girl when he walks, or so the jocks at school tell him, although with much crasser wording.

"By the way," Tina says, "Blaine Anderson is staring at you … _again_."

"No way. Don't drag me into your deluded fantasies. Blaine Anderson doesn't stare at me ever. Everyone knows he's dating Santana Lopez."

"Who knows that?"

Tina is a little too short to reach the top shelf of the expediter's station, so he pulls down her orders and helps to garnish the plates.

"I don't know. Everyone. They're always together."

"I'm always with you, and we're not dating."

"That's different."

When Kurt came out last year, very few of his classmates were surprised. He's nothing if not flamboyant. Most of them, Tina included, had been operating under the assumption he was gay since at least the sixth grade.

Tina hefts the tray up high to avoid clocking sitting customers while she weaves her way through the dining area. It's nothing special, the Crashdown Cafe, aside from the themed cuteness of the uniforms. There are eight booths, four along each wall, and a dozen tables between, plus ten stools at the counter. The décor is pale orange and white, and that's something Kurt has wanted to change for years, but it matches the outside of the building. There's a saucer-shaped spaceship crashed into the front of the Crashdown over the door.

Kurt tries to pretend like he's watching Tina's progress across the dining room, but he's actually sneaking glances at Blaine Anderson who is seated in the booth just in front of the jukebox with Santana Lopez, who Kurt honestly doesn't know if he's dating. Blaine is, simply put, a teenage dream with his dark, styled curls and classically handsome features that remind Kurt of a 1940's movie star. He's a little short and smiles too brightly to fit the bill completely, but it breathes life into what would otherwise be a cardboard cutout image.

Blaine catches Kurt looking, and he turns away sharply.

Blaine Anderson will admit to exactly zero people that he watches Kurt Hummel on a regular basis. Santana would harass him about it constantly. They can't afford to make attachments, because they might have to leave Roswell at a moment's notice and never come back. To hesitate could spell something far worse than death for them: captivity, experimentation, interrogations that will never cease because they have no answers to give. They look human, but they're not. They're aliens, and they can't afford to forget that.

Still, Blaine watches Kurt. He doesn't make a conscious effort to follow Kurt's progress as he parades down the halls of West Roswell High like he owns the place. His eyes are drawn to Kurt by something beyond his control, and he can't look away until Santana snaps her fingers in front of his face or Kurt turns a corner and disappears. He is completely and utterly at the beck and call of Kurt Hummel, and they haven't spoken more than ten words at a time to each other since the seventh grade.

A sharp snap brings him back into the present. Santana has on the stern face that means he's failed to respond to her in a timely manner. She's a demanding girl, and he thinks that's probably a little bit because she's so pretty she's been able to get away with treating boys poorly all her life and a little bit because Blaine is the only boy who really cares about what she has to say, and it hurts when he zones out while she's talking.

"Sorry. I'm really sorry, Santana."

She shakes her head and pretends it doesn't matter. Her black ponytail – a new extension or a weave, he's not sure which, but she definitely paid for it – swings and catches on her bare shoulder. It's not really hot enough for tube tops and miniskirts, but she dresses like it is all year round anyway. She looks like she's resigned to repeat herself, but an arguing pair draws a judgmental glare from her.

Kurt watches them too while he prepares the orders to deliver to the UFO enthusiast couple who totally bought his fake photograph as legitimate and begged for a copy. Only, he doesn't get to their table because the guys arguing on the far side of the diner escalate their fight. One of them pulls out a concealed handgun, and Kurt has just a moment to think sarcastically – _God, I love New Mexico_ – before the terrified screams startle him back into the moment.

But by then, it's too late.

The men wrestle over the gun, and a finger squeezes the trigger. It goes off with a deafening bang far, far louder than in any movie Kurt has ever seen. And he doesn't quite understand why his stomach feels like it's on fire and he's suddenly flat on his back considering this oddity and the diner's ceiling, but he is, and he can't make his limbs work to get himself back on his feet. He wants to stand up to make sure Tina is okay. He hears her voice, as if from very far away.

"Oh my God, Kurt!"

And that's when his brain puts it all together. The fire in his stomach turns into a raging torrent of pain so intense he forgets in a second that there is anything else in the world but pain. But infinitely worse is the fear. Fear of the darkness creeping into his vision and what comes after, but mostly fear that Tina has to see this and that his dad will have to watch as the police pull back the sheet and prove to him that his son died in a shooting inside his diner.

Tina is running towards Kurt, but Blaine can't let her get there if he's going to help. And he's definitely going to help whether it's a good idea or not, because he can't let Kurt bleed out on the floor of the Crashdown.

"Call 9-1-1!" Blaine orders her, and she digs her cell phone out of her alien-shaped apron.

"What are you doing?" Santana demands.

She jumps out of the booth to bodily block him from doing something stupid, but he pushes past her, and she resigns herself to damage control. She shouts at the tourists to get back and shuffles them around to give Blaine as much privacy as possible. At least Kurt fell so he's partially concealed by the counter.

The metal snaps on the front of Kurt's work shirt pop open, and then there are hands framing his face and redirecting his gaze. He sees Blaine Anderson leaning over him. He looks so different with his handsome face drawn and his eyes full of worry.

"Kurt, I need you to look at me. Kurt, you have to look at me," he urges.

Kurt thinks that he manages to roll his neck, but he's not sure because all he can feel is the pain making his body shiver on the floor.

Kurt looks so scared and lost, and there's dark red blood pooling in the dip of his stomach, so it's difficult for Blaine to focus on what he knows he has to do. Kurt's eyes lock onto his, and whether it's because he's trying to look at Blaine like he's been asked to do or because fear and pain make him search for any person to connect with, it's the impetus Blaine needs to push aside his own terror and do what he knows he's capable of.

He can save Kurt.

Blaine places his hand over the weeping bullet wound beside Kurt's belly button. The healing power comes when it's called. Blaine doesn't know where it comes from just like he doesn't know why his lungs draw breath when he sleeps. The healing is a part of him encoded into his physiology. A faint white glow wraps around his palm as the connection between himself and Kurt takes hold.

Kurt stops breathing. His heart stills. Bits of his life flash before Blaine's eyes.

_A little boy in a bowtie is having a tea party with his stuffed animals. A balding man in a flannel shirt comes over to the small table beneath the shade of an Aspen tree and drops down into the miniature chair. He lets the little boy pour him imaginary tea and instruct him to hold out his pinky finger. The boy knew his dad would join him. He'd already told his teddy bear he'd have to give up his seat eventually._

_The same little boy is wobbling on a bicycle with streamers on the handlebars flying in the wind, but he knows his dad has a hold on the back of the seat and won't let him fall. Except his dad lets go, and he does fall. He cries because he doesn't understand why his dad would let him go like that, but the hug and Strawberry Shortcake Band-Aid makes it all better._

_The boy and his dad are standing in a cemetery in black suits. The boy is eight-years-old, and it's his mother going into the ground. He's frightened and sad. He's never lost anyone he loves before. It's so much worse than when he lost his favorite teddy bear at the mall, but that's the only comparison he has. His little heart can't comprehend yet what has happened. He reaches out for his dad's hand._

Air rushes into Kurt's lungs, and he gasps. His eyes rove over the ceiling, as if he can't quite recall why he's lying on his back with a boy who's hardly spoken to him kneeling beside him. And then he does. His eyes snap to Blaine, and they're full of questions Blaine can't answer right now. The sirens are getting nearer.

"We have to go!" Santana hisses by his ear. "Keys!"

It's all Blaine needs to remember what will happen if anyone finds out what he did.

He tosses his car keys to Santana, and she runs out of the diner to pull the car around. Blaine grabs a bottle of ketchup from the counter and breaks the glass container on the edge of the Formica. He spills it over Kurt's stomach where blood is smeared over his perfect skin.

"You're all right now. You broke the bottle when you fell and spilled ketchup on yourself. You can't say anything. Please."

Blaine pushes up from the ground and fights through the crowd of customers craning to see what's happening behind the counter. Kurt pulls himself to his feet using the edge of the counter for support. He watches as Santana pulls around in the white Corvette Blaine drives to school every day, and he jumps into the passenger seat without opening the door. He cranes in his seat to peer through the glass front of the diner: one final, silent plea.

_You can't say anything. Please._

And Kurt is resolved. He won't breathe a word.

* * *

**NOT OF THIS EARTH**

The bell above the door jingles as Sheriff Sylvester enters the Crashdown. She glances around at the tables shoved aside by bodies hurrying to flee and the spray of debris on the floor from the rush. She's a tall, imposing woman with short blonde hair and a stern face. Her badge is clipped to a black tracksuit. She tears off her reflective aviator sunglasses and surveys the crime scene again.

"I'm fine, Dad. I just spilled ketchup."

The insistent male voice of a higher pitch than most draws her attention to the middle of the diner where Kurt Hummel sits wiping thick red goop from his stomach with a white kitchen towel while his father hovers and worries. Sue has never cared much for Burt Hummel. She has an irrational hatred for the way he always wears flannel and baseball caps to cover his balding head. It's too hot in New Mexico for flannel, and he's not fooling anyone with the hats. But in this instance, Sue feels sorry for him. It's his kid who was supposedly shot in his own diner. If Sue ever got the call that her Becky had been hurt at the police station, she'd be out of her mind.

"You okay?" she asks.

Kurt nods. "Yes, I'm just a little shaken up."

Deputy Ryerson hustles over to claim her attention. He's about as useful as a canine unit of overly friendly Labradors, but he's the one who answered the call about the shooting. He wears his brown and tan uniform accented with a pink scarf, but at least he'd remembered to turn the police siren off this time so she didn't have to listen to its incessant wailing over his nasally account of what he'd discovered at the scene.

"Oh, Sheriff. Thank God you're here. I – Hey!" Sandy turns towards a pair of tourists poking around the swinging kitchen door. "I told you two to stay out of there." He shakes his head sadly. "They're in town for the Crash Festival. They're the _special_ kind of tourist."

Sue thinks Sandy is pretty fresh using that tone to describe anyone, but she lets it slide because the man and woman with alien patches on their pathetically mismatched clothes have something observationally important to tell her, which Sandy hasn't yet.

"The gunman was standing over there and fired in this direction, but where's the bullet hole?" the man asks.

"We haven't found a bullet yet, Sheriff," Sandy finally says. "There wasn't any robbery either or anyone hurt except the boy who fell. It looks like an argument that got out of hand."

"There's something else," the male tourist says. He pulls out a folded photograph printed on cheap photo paper. A third grader with a box of crayons could have doodled the alien in the picture. "Before it happened, the boy gave us this."

Sue lifts her eyebrows and hands the photograph off to Burt. He's near to laughing, but scolds his son anyway for messing with the tourists. She's more interested in walking the perimeter and searching for any clues Sandy might have missed. The UFO conspiracy freaks are only too eager to provide her with more information.

"There were two teenagers sitting in this booth, a boy and a girl."

"Yeah, there were!" Kurt jumps in.

He hurries over to the booth in question where two plates of unfinished food rest on the Formica top. Strangely, there are also two empty bottles of Tabasco sauce overturned on the table. Kurt's still clutching the stained white towel around his stomach, and he looks a little too panicked to not raise Sue's suspicions.

"You know, I didn't recognize them, so they're probably from out of town too."

"No," the tourist says. "It looked like he knew them."

Sue's eyes travel over Kurt's shoulder to the Asian teenager hovering uncertainly. She'll get her name from Sandy and question her when they're not all so jumpy. Sheriff is an elected position, after all, and interrogating children after they've witnessed an almost-shooting where they work is cannon fodder for challengers, but that doesn't mean she won't get to the bottom of this eventually.

o

When he gets home to the renovated bakery attached to the back of the Crashdown, Kurt feigns exhaustion and runs up the stairs to his room. His bedroom and the private bathroom are the only rooms on the third floor, so he knows he'll be left alone for the rest of the night. He sags against the back of the door and takes shuddering breaths to force his nerves to calm.

Everyone has questions for him. He knows his dad is chomping at the bit, but he'd managed to keep his questions to himself for now, and Kurt's grateful for that. The Sheriff isn't done with him either after those idiot UFO hunters ruined his cover story. As he'd left the diner, Tina had sent him a searching look, so he'd have to deal with her too at school tomorrow. She would want to know why Kurt lied for Blaine.

Kurt doesn't know why himself. He's hardly spoken to Blaine since junior high, and yet he feels now that there's something more between them. He can't name the connection he feels, only that it's like an unfamiliar but comforting tug at his chest.

He knows that he was shot. He died. He came back. And now he feels connected to Blaine.

He can't even begin to explain that to himself, much less an outside observer. It's just _there_: undeniable and indelible.

Kurt catches a glimpse of his ruined uniform in the full length mirror standing beside his computer desk. Blood and ketchup are smeared over his torso, and suddenly it's not the connection to Blaine that disturbs him, but the physical evidence that _he died and Blaine brought him back to life_. He rushes over to the mirror and fingers the dry, crusted sage material. The tip of his pointer finger slips through the bullet hole in the fabric.

He wants to know how.

Kurt believes in science, and science says that when a person is shot, they require surgery to remove the bullet and stop the bleeding. So how had Blaine healed him in half a minute? There are stories about spiritual healers who lay their hands on the sick, but Kurt doesn't believe in any religion's God. The local Native American tribes have shamans who know about herbal remedies. Kurt had always thought Blaine was Latino, mostly by association because he's always around Santana, but he supposes Blaine's olive complexion could be Native American. But even the best holistic healers can't fix the damage done by a bullet in thirty seconds.

Kurt doesn't know how Blaine did it. What he does know is that his uniform is proof, and if the Sheriff thinks to ask for it, she'll find ketchup and blood and no fabricated story in the world can cover up the mysterious events that happened behind the counter between Kurt dying and coming back. He can't explain why he wants to keep it a secret when it's not his secret to keep, but the thought of selling out Blaine to cast the Sheriff's suspicion off of him makes Kurt's stomach twist.

His hands tear at the ruined shirt. The metal snaps rip apart with sharp pings, and he scrambles to get his arms out of the holes. His fingers catch on the silver fins at the cuff, and he turns frantic. Ten seconds later, the material is bunched up and stuffed into his messenger bag. He runs his hands through his hair, his chest heaving like he's run a marathon instead of just taken off a shirt. He'll destroy the evidence tomorrow, and then Blaine will be safe. His heart slows down now that he has a plan.

A flash from the corner of his eye draws him back to the mirror. What he sees puts a lump into his throat and his pulse pounding in his ears.

On his stomach beside his belly button, exactly where he'd been shot and Blaine healed him with a touch, is a silver handprint glowing faintly in the darkening room.

o

Kurt manages to avoid Tina before school by pretending that he overslept. She doesn't believe his story. He's dressed immaculately as ever with his hair perfectly styled, and he only has time for a pompadour when he wakes up two hours before school starts. The bell rings, though, saving him for the time being, and he has just enough time to shove his messenger bag into his locker, pull out his biology books and notebook, and run to class.

The first thing he notices when Mr. Schuester begins class is that Blaine is absent. They sit at the same lab table, effectively making them lab partners, only because Tina isn't in biology with him and the rest of the class is mostly jocks. Kurt would rather eat his scarf collection than subject himself to a year of torture by attempting to partner with any of them. On the first day of school, Blaine had grinned at him when Kurt picked the second seat at his lab table, and most of their conversation for the past month had been about preparing slides to view under the microscope.

"We've been talking about genus and phylum for the past couple weeks. Now we're going to move on to species." Blaine comes in late, but Mr. Schuester doesn't pause his lecture. "Everyone on the right, prepare a slide with a vegetable sample. Everyone on the left, use a toothpick to take a cell sample from inside your cheek."

Kurt reaches for the glass slides, water dropper, and dye sitting in the center of the table. From the corner of his eye, he sees Blaine go very still. He stands up abruptly and drops the pen he's been chewing onto his biology book. Mr. Schuester raises his eyebrows.

"Can I get a bathroom pass?" Blaine asks.

Mr. Schuester holds out the yellow paper pass, and Blaine rushes out of the room leaving Kurt to scrape the toothpick along the inside of his own cheek and create the smear on the slide. He adjusts the microscope until a flurry of little circular red cells comes into focus. Mr. Schuester just wants them to observe since he hasn't asked for drawings yet, so Kurt swivels from side-to-side on his stool waiting for the rest of the class to use what few brain cells getting sacked in football and smoking weed hasn't killed yet and catch up with him. Mr. Schuester is still talking as he weaves around the lab tables.

"It's very easy to look on the outside and determine what makes humans different from other species. But what about what's on the inside?"

Kurt's gaze lands on the pen lying on top of Blaine's books. The pen that had been inside his mouth and against his cheek.

His hands move before he realizes he's made the decision. Preparing slides is second nature to Kurt, and in less than a minute he has the slide under the already focused microscope. He peers into the lens, and his heart skips a beat.

The cells are oblong with dark, vivid black nuclei and swirling green cytoplasm. They're beautiful, microscopic nebulas.

Kurt takes the slide from the biology lab when the bell rings.

o

"Blaine! _Blaine!_"

Kurt pushes his way through the crowd filling up the halls of West Roswell High now that the bell has rung. He shoulder checks Dave Karofsky on accident, and he'll definitely pay for that later, but right now he has to get to Blaine. There's no logical reason for it, to chase down a boy he barely knows when what he suspects should terrify him, but the tug in his chest and the questions in his head compel him.

He catches up to Blaine in the exterior hallway connecting the main classrooms to the cafeteria and commons where the honors students have study hall second hour. He wraps his arm around Blaine's elbow to keep him from escaping.

"I have to talk to you."

Kurt drags him around the side of the building and into the choir room that's only ever used when Ms. Corcoran allows the show choir a break from the rigorous dance boot camp in the auditorium and they practice scales and harmonies.

"You used to be in show choir, right?" Blaine asks. "I always really loved the performances you did at school assemblies. Why do Jesse St. James and Rachel Berry get all the solos, though?"

"It's Ms. Corcoran's strategy to win Nationals." He shakes his head to clear the distraction of an opening to rant about the unfairness of show choir and why he quit last year. "Blaine, can we focus here?"

Kurt lifts the hem of his shirt slowly exposing his pale torso and the shining handprint beside his belly button. Blaine's eyes go wide, and his mouth forms a surprised O. He knows he has the ability to heal because he's healed Santana plenty of times, but she's never told him about residual handprints. Maybe because their species doesn't mark each other or because she accepted it as a natural part of the healing process. Kurt lets the material fall and brushes the wrinkles out of the designer t-shirt. He crosses his arms over his chest protectively.

"I scraped some cells from your pen and looked at them under the microscope. The cells, they weren't normal. What I'm thinking is is that I got the wrong cells. They're from the pen or something else it touched, and not from your cheek. I did get the wrong cells, didn't I?"

Kurt looks so scared, not of Blaine necessarily, but of Blaine confirming his suspicions because it will change everything he thinks is true about the world. Blaine considers what to do. He presses his lips together and turns away for a moment to think, but he's known since he knelt beside Kurt in the diner that this moment would come. There is no use prolonging it with lies or half-truths.

"You didn't."

Kurt reels backwards and forces himself to take calming breaths. He has no idea what to say next. It sounds like Blaine just admitted that his cells aren't human. Kurt's mind wants to make the logical connection, but the pathway is blocked by a certainty that it can't be true.

"So … help me out here, Blaine."

"I'm … not from around here."

"Where are you from?"

Blaine lifts his index finger to the sky.

"Up north?"

He raises his hand higher.

"You're not an … an … a-alien."

"I prefer the term not of this earth. Sorry, that's a bad joke. Yeah, I am. Wow. It's really weird to actually say."

While Blaine is rambling and trying to fill the terrible silence with sound, Kurt is quietly freaking out. Blaine Anderson is an alien. Yesterday, Kurt would have rolled his eyes and made a sarcastic comment about aliens hiding all over Roswell. But yesterday, Kurt died and came back to life because _Blaine Anderson is an alien_.

He bolts for the door with sharper reflexes than he knew he had, but Blaine lurches after him. Kurt's brain kicks into overdrive, but instead of producing witty quips, it spews out transparent drivel while endorphins tell Kurt to run, _run_, _**RUN!**_

"I have to go. I'm going to be late for study hall, and I have a project for government to finish that I won't have time for tonight because I'm working at the diner and –"

Blaine's hand pushes the door closed again. He's shorter than Kurt, but strong. He holds the door closed while stepping very close to Kurt and peering those few inches up into Kurt's eyes. He's not just speaking, he's pleading with Kurt just like he had after he saved his life.

"Kurt, you can't talk to anyone about this. Not Tina, not your dad. You don't understand what will happen if you do. Please. My life is in your hands."

* * *

**THE ALIEN SIDE**

Santana glares at Blaine across the table while shaking half a bottle of Tabasco sauce into her lemonade. It takes a lot to make her so angry she can't speak, but clearly Blaine has done it. He gingerly picks up the second bottle of Tabasco to load onto his tacos. He has no idea what will set her off again. It very well might be lunch.

He knows she dragged him off campus for lunch at their favorite Mexican place so she can yell at him, and he's waiting for the worst. The tables are all outside, and the line to the walk-up kitchen is close by so she'll wait until the lunch rush is over, but Blaine knows it's coming. For eleven years, whenever one of them has messed up, the other has called them on it. But they've never screwed up quite as much as Blaine. He can't bring himself to care, though, because he saved Kurt. How could that ever be a bad thing?

Even at a taco stand on the side of the highway, they can't escape reminders that they live in Roswell. There's an alien in a Mexican poncho and sombrero next to their table. Blaine looks away from its clichéd head sharply.

"I can't believe you, Blaine," she says finally.

"You use your powers all the time," Blaine counters.

"Yeah, recreationally." She holds her hand over her tacos and melts the cheese. "It's not the same. We made a sacred pact. You broke the rules."

"I'm sorry. I couldn't just let Kurt die."

She sends him a calculated look. They've talked about this before. There are so many what ifs to obsess over. What if they had each other's strongest power? Whose dreams would Blaine visit? Who would Santana heal? It's a pointless discussion, but one they've had countless times anyway.

"We'll just have to come up with some story to tell Lady Fabulous," she surmises.

Blaine goes quiet. The guilt is evident in the way he looks down at his lunch. He can almost feel Santana's eyes boring into the top of his head.

"Oh my God," she groans. "You told him."

"I didn't have a choice."

The weak defense gets him nowhere with the girl who looks close to throttling him. Santana sits back and pushes her food away. For a minute, Blaine worries she actually will attack him. He's a little bigger than her, but she fights dirty, and he can't hit a girl, so there's no way he'll win. She shrugs her shoulders, though, more resigned than angry.

"Well, then we'll have to leave Roswell."

"Wait, what?" he asks, caught off guard. He shakes his head. "Roswell is our home."

She leans over the table and hisses angrily at him. Everything about the shake of her head and set of her shoulders says she's getting more agitated the more she talks, and it's going to be a real challenge for Blaine to get this idea out of her head.

"It's different for you. You were adopted. True, the Andersons are giant d-bags who think getting grease under your nails will turn you straight, but it's still a hell of lot better than my foster mother who only keeps me around for the monthly check. Roswell is not our home. It's not even our solar system."

They leave the picnic table with their food mostly untouched and climb into Blaine's rebuilt convertible. The red leather seats are hot from sitting in the sun. She digs a chocolate bar out of her bag and shakes Tabasco sauce from the stolen bottle onto it. Blaine's dad nearly has an aneurism anytime he sees them eating in the car, so they make a habit of doing it as often as possible.

"I think we should just go back to school and act normal."

Santana laughs humorlessly.

"Have you thought about what will happen if they catch us?" she asks sharply. "They'll experiment on us, and, oh right, _exterminate us_. There's a reason we stay as invisible as possible."

Santana twists around in her seat, and from the softening in her consternation, Blaine thinks she knows they're rapidly approaching the limits of his patience. He doesn't like being scolded ever, but it's ten times worse when it's Santana. She's the only person in his life who really knows him. It hurts when she's against him. She knows that because she's felt it too, and she's usually more forgiving, except Blaine has really, really screwed up.

She changes her mind about whatever she was going to say.

"What's done is done," she concludes. "Kurt knows, and that means Roswell isn't safe anymore. I still say we pack up and leave tonight."

Blaine shakes his head vehemently while he slouches down in the seat and crosses his arms over his chest petulantly.

"Kurt won't tell. He's different."

"Oh, really?" Santana asks around another mouthful of chocolate and Tabasco. "And how did Lady Face react to the news? 'Oh, you're an alien, that's fantastic!'?"

Blaine purses his lips and glances out towards the flat, rust red desert leading to a plateau on the edge of his vision. His insistence that, "He's different," is lost when Santana turns the key in the ignition and motions for him to pull out onto the highway leading back into town. Apparently, they're going with his plan of heading back to school and acting normal.

Blaine's dad hadn't allowed him to put in a good sound system into the Corvette. He wanted it rebuilt exactly as it had been in 1959, so there's just the radio and tinny speakers. Santana takes her iPod out of her purse and taps the device against her temple. A soulful female voice blasts out of the car's speakers. Blaine thinks it's Katie Melua, but most of Santana's music collection is soulful, female voices.

"Will you turn that off?" Blaine asks snappishly.

Santana pulls the iPod away from her temple, and the sound shuts off abruptly. Only the wind whipping her ponytail around fills their ears now.

"Right. Because it's music that's the problem," she grumbles.

The highway curves around a rust red boulder on the right, and the edge of Roswell blooms into view. They'll be back at school in about five minutes even if they do hit the one stoplight between city limits and West Roswell High. From behind, a police siren draws their attention. Blaine cranes around to see the Sheriff's Le Car with lights flashing on top. It should be ridiculous that their Sheriff drives at semi-convertible hatchback – that _anyone_ drives a semi-convertible hatchback – but she's too terrifying to laugh at.

"Go!" Santana orders. "Just go! Don't pull over."

"We can't start acting guilty. She pulls kids over all the time. Just act calm."

Sheriff Sylvester steps out of her classic 1979 Le Car and approaches the two teenagers in the classic sport convertible that screams 'mommy and daddy give me everything I want, and I'm going to throw a tantrum and try to pull strings if you hand me a ticket.' Unfortunately, she can't ticket kids for being spoiled and rich. She's tried before, but the judge threw out the charge even after she tried to blackmail him.

"Hello, Sheriff," the boy says softly.

Sue immediately distrusts him. Rich kids who own Corvettes don't speak politely to adults who drive the infinitely superior Le Car, and that raises a red flag in the Sheriff's mind. She doesn't like things that don't look like what they are.

"License and registration."

While the boy pulls out the requested items from his wallet and the sun visor, Sue glances at the passenger. The Latina girl in the front seat stares straight ahead with a sour look on her face.

"Take it from someone who ruined her hair trying to emulate Madonna, looking like young Burt Reynolds isn't worth subjecting your hair to toxic chemicals," she tells the boy.

His smile falters, but the girl stifles a laugh and draws Sue's attention. The Sheriff's eyes land on an empty bottle of Tabasco sauce at the girl's feet. So now she knows who sat in the booth at the Crashdown and who Kurt Hummel lied to protect. But why?

"You kids be safe out there. We had some trouble at the Crashdown Cafe yesterday, and we wouldn't want a repeat."

"Yes, ma'am," the driver promises.

Blaine lets out a shaky breath when the Sheriff pulls away in her little white hatchback. He reaches for the keys to turn the ignition, but Santana bats his hand away. She twists in her seat to glare at Blaine.

"Now can we get the hell out of Roswell? She is so onto us."

"Just because she mentioned the Crashdown doesn't mean anything," Blaine argues. "Roswell hasn't had a shooting in years. It's all anyone is talking about, and the Sheriff is even more likely to warn everyone to stay safe."

Santana flings the door open and jumps out. The dusty earth puffs up around her ankles where her heeled boots land. She slams the door shut and throws up her arms as she walks away into the desert.

"Santana!" he calls.

"No!" she shouts, rounding on him. "No, I'm not staying in Roswell to be hunted down and thrown in some cell like a lab rat."

"Kurt won't –"

"You don't know that!" she screams. "You want to believe it, but that doesn't mean it's true! God! Blaine, I love you like a brother, but your constant doe-eyed, rose-tinted view of humans is disgusting. The others who came on our ship – our real parents – they didn't just disappear. They were killed."

She spins on her heel and marches away again. Blaine doesn't have it in him to chase her down and make this right. Blaine is the only one who's ever been able to pull her back from the edge when her anger makes her do stupid things, but the truth is, she's right. Blaine hopes Kurt won't tell; he doesn't think Kurt will, but he can't be one hundred percent certain with the way they left their last conversation.

"I'll talk to him." His voice carries to Santana. "If he's going to tell, we'll leave Roswell."

Blaine sighs deeply and sags against the seat. It's almost come to a choice between Kurt and Santana. How can he choose between the girl he loves like a sister and the boy he's been in love with since the fifth grade? But he does know which one he'll choose. He couldn't abandon the only person in the world who truly knows him. As much as it would hurt to leave Roswell and Kurt, he will if he has to. Santana is family.

o

Sue sits behind her desk back at the station considering the hands folded in her lap. She needs to find out more about Blaine Anderson and the girl in the car with him. Luckily, she has a daughter who goes to school at West Roswell High, and Becky is worth more than an entire police squad.

They're about to have a spy in their midst.

* * *

**EYEWITNESSES**

Currently, Artie Abrams is heavily invested in a heated discussion about why _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ is a neglected masterpiece … with himself. That's the thing about Artie. He's an unmitigated film geek. Tina doesn't understand half of what he's saying about camera moves and storylines, but normally she at least tries. Today, however, she's frustrated and needs to vent, not listen.

"Fascinating," she says, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Have you talked to Kurt?"

He looks like she kicked his puppy. Tina would feel bad about interrupting his flow, except he gets into a flow daily. He adjusts his glasses with hands covered in black racing gloves that help him keep a grip on his wheelchair wheels.

"Uh. No, actually. The last time I saw him was American History yesterday."

Tina huffs and crosses her arms over her chest while she peers around the cafeteria. Most of the students eat outside when the weather starts to cool down, but Tina has gym right before lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and she wants the air conditioning. She finally spots Kurt sitting at the table outside. He's hard to miss in his red fedora and red, white, and blue star-spangled vest.

"Oh my God!" she cries. "He's sitting with Jesse St. James. He hates Jesse St. James. He goes around openly admitting it."

Artie shrugs. "Maybe he's thinking about joining show choir again?"

She cocks an eyebrow in reply. After the total drama that went down last year when Mr. Schue was fired as show choir director and Ms. Corcoran took over, there isn't a chance she or Kurt are going back to that hotbed of megalomaniacs. Tina has hurt feelings over it all, but Kurt still has the emotional bruises, and she knows how boys get when their pride has been damaged.

"Something happened at the Crashdown."

"Uh, yeah. Some guy shot at Kurt."

Tina narrows her eyes at Kurt's brightly colored back through the glass wall separating them. She hasn't told Artie yet what she's thinking, and she knows she can't right now. He's a sweet guy, but his film-crazy brain dreams up way, way too many fictional plotlines from nothing facts.

"I gotta go, Artie."

He looks like she kicked his puppy again, and this time it does make her feel bad. She knows that he knows she's leaving him so she can stake out Kurt's locker and ambush him before fifth period. She hates to leave him alone in the cafeteria, but she needs to find out what's going on with Kurt.

o

Tina pops out of her hiding place under the stairs when Kurt glides past on his way to his locker a little down the hall. He's no more lifted the latch when Tina smacks the locker shut and glares up at her much taller best friend.

"I sent you thirty-seven text messages, and you didn't reply to any of them. I don't like that. So here's the deal. There's something going on with you, and if you tell me what it is right now, I'll forgive you for ignoring me."

Kurt blanches. It's not often Tina gets into a fierce stride, so he knows how serious she is, but he can't say anything. He hasn't even begun to sort out how he feels about what Blaine told him for himself, much less deal with another person's reaction.

"There's nothing going on, Tina."

He turns away from her to spin his lock again, and Tina knows he's lying because he won't look her in the eye. She puts a hand on her hip and cocks an eyebrow, as if to tell him he has one last chance before shit gets serious.

"Kurt, I was there. What did Blaine do to you?"

Kurt goes still for a moment before he shakes his head. His face looks pinched, like it always used to when they were still in glee and Jesse started ragging on his song selections, high voice, and chasse-style dancing and no one came to his defense, not even Ms. Corcoran who seemed to agree given how much further she pushed him to the back.

"Nothing," Kurt insists. "Tina, you were there, so you know what happened. The gun went off, it scared me, I fell down and broke a ketchup bottle. Can we please stop talking about this now?"

"Sure, Kurt. Just one more thing."

She quickly opens her own locker and pulls out a green and white order booklet she'd found wedged under the ice cream freezer next to where Kurt had fallen. There's a dark red splatter in the corner. Kurt's breath catches in his throat, and his face goes pale. She's so caught him in his lie.

"This isn't ketchup. It looks a lot like blood to me."

Kurt does the only sensible thing. He stalls until the bell rings and they have to go to separate classes. Tina goes to Spanish class and hopes Mr. Martinez's hotness can distract her from the fact that she's being lied to by her best friend.

o

Most of the time, Becky Sylvester is invisible.

She's a tiny girl with a sweet personality until someone makes her mad and the biting sarcasm she picked up from her mother – she'd say inherited, but she's adopted – rears its ugly head. Kids at school used to be cruel in elementary, but as they've gotten older, they've learned not to make fun of the girl with Downs Syndrome. Now they just ignore her. She doesn't know which is worse, being a target or being coddled.

Today, she thinks being invisible is a good thing. Her mom asked her to collect some information about a couple kids she goes to school with, and Becky has thrown herself into the task. She hates to let her mom down, even though she knows she'll still get a hug and her pick of reality television at the end of the day while they snuggle up on the couch with a pint of ice cream. She has no idea why people are afraid of her mom.

She walks down the hallway with her books clutched to her chest and keeping an eye out for any of the kids her mom wants the scoop on. She sees Tina Cohen-Chang on her way to class. She has on a necklace of plastic spiders today that is creeping Becky right out. It's strange not to see Kurt Hummel with her, but luckily he's in her next class, so she'll have time to observe.

Santana Lopez is around the corner in the next hallway. Everyone knows she's trouble. She comes from the wrong side of town, she constantly mouths off to students and teachers alike, and she's so freaky in bed even Noah Puckerman won't brag about being with her. (The rumor is she's either a dominatrix or she put something up his butt or both.)

It's actually the person by the geometry classroom who she wants to talk to, though. She stops short in front of his locker.

"Hey, hot stuff."

Blaine Anderson does a double take. "Uh. Hi, Becky. How are you today?"

"I'm doing awesome. I'm killing some time before Home Ec. We're making cupcakes today. They're going to be vanilla, and I'm going to decorate them with pink icing and sprinkles. I'll give you one after class, if you want."

Blaine flashes her such a toothy smile she swears she'll be blinded. She thinks he might have more teeth than most people. She'll have to tell her mom about this theory tonight.

"Thanks, Becky. That's really sweet. I love cupcakes with sprinkles. When I was younger my mom used to always bake ones just like that for me to take to school on my birthday."

Oh, man. This kid is a goldmine of information, and he doesn't even realize the juicy tidbits he's giving up. She cannot wait to tell her mom what she's learning. And after she gives him a delicious cupcake, she can pump him for even more information.

"Okay. I'll meet you here after class."

Becky skips into the Home Ec room feeling on top of the world. She has a few minutes before class starts, so she pulls out her Hello, Kitty notebook and jots down everything she just found out on the page titled: "Blaine Anderson."

_1. Spends all his money on hair gel and bowties; can't afford socks_

_2. Has too many teeth like a shark_

_3. Loves cupcakes and sprinkles_

_4. Has a mom_

She flips it shut again just as her kitchen partners take their seats beside her. Quinn Fabray hardly spares her a look. Most of the time, she treats Becky like she's deaf. Sometimes, Becky likes to make rude hand gestures at her and pretend she's trying to do sign language since Quinn is obviously hearing impaired. She never gets in trouble for it.

Kurt Hummel works in the next kitchen. He passes Becky a warm smile as he takes his seat at the counter. It's a shame her mom suspects him of something, because Kurt has always been nice to her even when they were kids. She thinks it's because he didn't have any friends before Tina, but even after he got a best friend he was kind to her.

"Today is a cooking day. Everyone please remember what we talked about yesterday, especially in regards to safely handling eggs. I'd hate to see anyone in the nurse's office again."

Their teacher, Ms. Harris, fixes Finn Hudson with a stern glare. The gawky guy tries to make himself smaller, which is insanely hilarious considering he's roughly the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

"Start by washing your hands, and then assigning duties. One person should measure the ingredients, and one person should mix. The third person can wash dishes as you go."

They're dismissed to start work on their cupcakes, and of course Quinn and Lisa, another cheerleader, give Becky the task of washing dishes. They try to order her around, but she's so above it she stands back and fixes them with the stink eye her mom uses on loitering teenagers and homeless people when they walk around the park together.

"Whatever. Let's just do it ourselves," Quinn suggests at last.

Maybe she does have a brain after all.

Becky lets them dirty up some dishes and goes across the room to find an apron she can wear over her clothes. No one else really has a problem splashing soapy water all over their clothes, but Becky can't keep the dishwater in the sink. The aprons are hanging from a peg too high for her to reach even on her tiptoes, but Kurt is on his way over to get one as well, so she'll ask him for help.

"I'm glad to see someone else in this class isn't a barbarian baking away without anything to protect their fashion statement of the day. Not that many of these outfits classify as fashionable," Kurt says, glancing disdainfully around the room.

"Do you like my shirt?"

Becky loves her red polo with the tiny alligator stitched into the chest. It's been washed so many times its soft and cozy, and the color has faded from deep red to her favorite lighter almost-pink shade. Kurt's mouth twitches, but forms a smile eventually.

"Do _you_ like your shirt?"

"It's my favorite," she confesses.

"You have very good taste. Red is an excellent color on you."

She forgets for a minute she's supposed to be collecting information about him and just smiles widely at the praise. She has learned something valuable, though: she has a good sense of style. She'll tell her mom that next time she wants to wear the polka dot dress and gets an eye roll.

"I like your shirt too."

"Oh, this old thing?"

Kurt pretends not to care that he got a compliment. For once, he's not wearing something ridiculous like the corset he had on last week or the patriot pride outfit from yesterday. It's a simple black and tan stripped swoop neck shirt. His black pageboy hat does make it a little bit over the top, though.

Ms. Harris sends them a sharp glance because they're lingering. Kurt pulls a face when the ancient teacher looks away and stretches up to pull two aprons from a second row of pegs which are used less often, and therefore probably cleaner. Kurt's shirt rides up his torso a little, and from her place low to the ground, Becky catches of a glimpse of pale skin – and they live in New Mexico, how is that possible? – and something else that startles her.

A glowing silver handprint beside his belly button.

Kurt catches her staring and hastily pulls down his shirt. He hands off an apron quickly with a tight smile that fails to turn up the corner of his mouth much less reach his eyes. He hurries back to his kitchen unit and doesn't look at Becky for the rest of the class.

Becky thinks too many teeth and a love of cupcakes with sprinkles is the least of Blaine Anderson's secrets.

* * *

**THE WHOLE TRUTH**

The thing that Kurt loves most about his bedroom on the third floor of the converted bakery is that the window opens onto the rooftop of the Crashdown Cafe. When he sits on the cushioned lounger at night with only the stars above and city lights below, he can imagine that he's in New York City on the rooftop of his trendy Village apartment and not this spot on the map only famous because of a hoax.

Well, no. Not a hoax. Blaine has changed everything Kurt thinks about his hometown.

That's what Kurt is musing on as he writes in his journal. He's wrapped up in a thick blanket to fight off the cold desert night with the brand new book open on his lap. He's never been one for journals before, but he died and an alien brought him back to life. He thinks he should put his thoughts on paper to sort them out.

There isn't much on the rooftop to distract Kurt, so he writes until his hand cramps, and then shakes it out and goes back to writing. He's considered decorating the rooftop – his terrace, as he calls it – but the wind and dry heat means sand and dust creep into everything. He takes the cushions from his chair into his bedroom nightly for that very reason. He's content with the few flowers that will thrive in the desert – he can't bear the thought of prickly cacti all around him – and the old telescope his dad bought him in fifth grade for his science fair project.

He considers it over the top of his journal for a minute. He wonders where Blaine is from, and if he could find that planet in a low power telescope, if anyone has ever documented its existence without knowing the famed Roswell grays live there.

"Kurt!"

The now familiar voice comes from the street below. Kurt freezes with his pen poised, then scrambles off the chair. He's grateful the flashing lights on the flying saucer over the Crashdown's entrance have been turned off after closing. He braces his hands on the ledge and peers down at Blaine.

"I need to talk to you," Blaine says, hardly a whisper though it bounces and amplifies off the brick walls.

Kurt nods and hurries across the terrace, through his open bedroom window, and down the stairs. He doesn't often use the interior stairwell that connects their home to the diner unless he's late for work. The steps creak something terrible – not that his dad is ever suspicious of a late-night trip to the diner considering how many tubs of ice cream they have in the freezer – but also because opening the adjacent door lets in the pervasive smell of grease into their home, and Kurt deals with that enough at work.

He hurries through the employee lounge and kitchen and across the dining room to unlock the front doors and let Blaine inside. He doesn't know why he's so eager to be in Blaine's company again after pure adrenaline sent him running last time, but the tugging in his chest eases when Blaine steps into the dimly lit diner.

"How are you doing?" Blaine asks.

Instinct tells Kurt to say 'fine' except he's not at all. He's so confused, and now that he's given himself permission to feel that, he sees the worry written over Blaine's face. He looks nothing like the untouchable handsome boy Kurt has forced his eyes to skim over for years. He remembers what Blaine said – "My life is in your hands" – and realizes that beneath the cool exterior, the weight and worry of secrets must be eating him alive.

"I'm confused about what happened."

Blaine cracks a little smile, but immediately apologies when Kurt frowns at him.

"I'm sorry. I just keep seeing that little boy so sure of himself he rode a bicycle with streamers down the street without any doubts that he was perfectly normal, even if he wasn't like the other boys."

Kurt's brow furrows until the memories of his first bike return to him. His eyes slip closed and a smile plays around the corners of his mouth.

"Oh my God. I completely forgot about that bike. I guess I was flamboyant even then." Another thought occurs to Kurt that wipes the smile off his lips. "I had that bicycle when I was seven. I didn't know you until the fifth grade. Did you … _read my mind?_"

Kurt spits the words at Blaine and steps back. It hits him in an instant that he's alone, far from anyone who can help, with an _alien_. Run, _run_, _**RUN!**_his brain tells him.

"No!" Blaine rushes to say.

He holds his hands out, palms up, in the universal – and, oh, God, that has such a new meaning now – symbol that shows he comes in peace. Kurt almost starts cackling madly.

"No, I don't read minds." Blaine looks frustrated as he searches for words that can explain. "I can … make connections with people. When I healed you, I had these flashes. I saw … a lot of things, and that bicycle was one of them, and I know how you felt about it."

Kurt doesn't know why he believes, but he does. He stops retreating and doesn't flinch when Blaine takes a step towards him.

"I've thought about telling you so many times."

Kurt scoffs before he can stop himself. "What? Me?"

"I've never tried this before, but … maybe I could reverse the connection, then you'd know me the way I know you." Kurt nods infinitesimally. "I have to touch you."

He nods again, this time more sure of his decision. Blaine closes the distance between them and reaches forward. He's about two inches shorter than Kurt, so he has to reach up to slide his hands around the back of his neck and into Kurt's hair. Normally, he would object to anyone messing up his hair, but the touch sends sparks racing down his spine and steals his breath away.

A moment passes while Blaine furrows his brow in concentration, and Kurt idly notes how his eyebrows lose their triangular shape. Then he's seeing memories and feeling emotions that aren't his.

_ Two children walk down a dusty desert road holding hands. Headlights cut through the blackness, and they turn to see who's found them. The boy trembles, he's so afraid, but the girl holds him tighter. They're wrapped in blankets from the trunk to keep them warm and cover their nakedness, and they think everything will be okay, but they're separated soon after. The girl goes into one room to sleep, and the boy is all alone in another room full of cots of slumbering boys. He curls up under the blanket and cries._

_ The little boy is older now. He's covered in engine grease and bent over the hood of a '59 Corvette his dad wanted to rebuild. The boy despises the car. Every time he sees it, he thinks about using his powers to break it so badly it can never be repaired. He takes it out on a punching bag in the school's weight room where no one else can see his rage._

_ It's last week, and the boy is walking down the hallway at school. He sees Kurt talking animatedly with Tina. His heart speeds up, and his stomach twists up nervously. Kurt catches his eye, and the boy forgets how to breathe. He almost trips over his toes, and his cheeks flush bright red, so he ducks his head and hurries on. _

When the connection ends, it's like a wave breaking over Kurt. There's oxygen everywhere around him, but none he can use. His mind reels as he struggles to process the onslaught of emotion. He has seen himself the way Blaine sees him, and the amazing thing is, Blaine thinks he's beautiful.

Kurt can't control his breathing. His chest is heaving like he's run a marathon, and he doesn't realize his legs have given out until he's already seated in one of the chairs and Blaine is watching him worriedly.

"You're gay?"

It's the most ridiculous question he's ever asked. Of course Blaine is gay. Straight guys don't have that depth of feeling for an out-and-proud gay guy.

"Yeah. I want to come out, but … it would draw attention, and we try to avoid that."

"We?"

"Santana, the girl from my memories."

Kurt takes a shaky breath. More aliens. Good. He manages to not say that out loud.

"Well, that answers that question. But, Blaine, I do have more. If I'm going to keep your secrets, then I have to know everything. I have to know I'm really doing the right thing and not just what I want to believe is the right thing."

Blaine smiles. "That's exactly why I came here tonight. What do you want to know? I'll tell you anything."

Kurt's brain refuses to work in such close proximity to the boy who's been harboring a crush on him for years. The lonely, frightened boy beneath the perfect façade. The closeted gay boy. The closeted gay alien with resurrection powers. Oh, dear God, and he thought his life was complicated before tonight.

He remembers then that he has a list, and he digs his iPhone out of his pocket. Blaine's lips twitch, and he so clearly wants to smile, but he doesn't for Kurt's sake. Kurt starts at the top of the list.

"Where are you from?"

"I don't know. All we know is that we came on the ship that crashed."

Kurt shakes his head. "I'm no great mathematical genius, but the ship crashed in 1947, and you're seventeen, so …"

"We were in incubation pods. When they opened, we were six years old. Someone found us in the desert and took us to Child Protective Services here in Roswell. The Andersons adopted me. Santana is still in the foster system."

Kurt swallows thickly and tries to balance his sympathy with the insatiable desire to know more. Blaine nods, as if to say that Kurt doesn't have to show basic human compassion during a sad story. Of course Blaine says that, because he's Blaine. Kurt knows exactly what that means now. He'll always put himself second, if Kurt – or Santana – let him.

"I'm sorry that you had to go through that." Kurt knows the story behind the flashy Corvette he's always admired. "And that your parents don't support you."

Blaine grimaces. "I know there's more on your list."

"Blaine –"

"Please, Kurt."

He relents and goes back to his list of questions. But he finds it difficult to care much about them when there's a boy so much like him who needs a friend to listen. Still, the next one is pretty important in the grand scheme of secret-keeping.

"What are your powers?"

"Well, you already know I can heal and make connections with other people. We can also manipulate the molecular structure of things –"

"Wait, what?"

Blaine searches for something on the tabletop, but they had been cleared off at closing. Instead, he passes his hand over the green bowtie around his neck. It changes into a black and white striped bowtie. And again, when it becomes solid orange. And again, back to green.

"Oh my God!" Kurt exclaims, rocking back in his seat. "_Oh my God!_ You only own one bowtie!"

Blaine laughs. It's true and genuine and warms him to his core. "I own a few, but … yes, I do use my powers for fashion opportunities."

Kurt's heart flutters in his chest. He really, really wants to ask if Blaine can turn his last season McQueen jacket into a this season McQueen, but that's not anywhere on his list, and even in the middle of swooning and bonding over fashion, he does realize that he has other important alien-related questions still unasked.

So now the final one. The one that could make this a little easier or a whole lot harder.

"Who else knows?"

"No one. We don't tell anyone, not even our parents. We kind of think our lives depend on it."

It boggles Kurt's mind that he alone among humans knows the truth. That he alone of everyone Blaine has never known was chosen and trusted with this information.

"So when you healed me, you risked everything. Why?"

Blaine breathes out and slowly blinks eyes welling with emotion and truth at Kurt.

"Because it was you."

* * *

**AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH**

Artie comes into the Crashdown early on Thursday morning, which is unusual. Kurt cocks an eyebrow while he stirs in cocoa powder, sugar, and milk into his travel mug of coffee. He's been trying to get his dad to invest in fancier equipment, but he says the diners at the Crashdown just want a good old fashioned cup of Joe, so Kurt is stuck making his own low-rent mochas unless he wants to shell out a small fortune at Starbucks.

"Hey, Artie. Do you need a ride to school?"

Of their friends, only Kurt has a car. Actually, Kurt doesn't have a car. He has his dad's truck, which he's allowed to drive to school because his dad works at the diner all day and doesn't need it, and there have been issues with bullies on the bus before.

He comes around the counter so he can see Artie clearly. He brings his coffee with him and takes two muffins from under the glass dome on the counter. Artie puts on his parking brake while Kurt pulls out a chair.

"No, my dad is waiting out front. I kind of had something to talk to you about. It's about Tina."

Kurt pauses with the coffee mug at his lips. "Oh?"

"Yeah. See, you're my friend, and Tina is my friend, so when you two aren't talking …."

Kurt understands, and he sympathizes with Artie, but he can't talk to Tina about what's going on between him and Blaine. One, Blaine is an alien. Two, Blaine is still in the closet. Outing him as a gay alien seems like something that would exact a terrifying degree of cosmic retribution.

"I understand where you're coming from, but … Tina wouldn't understand."

Artie nods slowly. "There's probably a lot of things that people in this town wouldn't understand about people like us, but we've always understood each other. Just consider it, okay? This is the girl who quit glee club as a show of support for us. We owe her our trust."

Of course Artie's right. But Blaine saved his life and deserves his trust too.

After Artie leaves, Kurt hunts around the area behind the counter looking for his messenger bag, but it's not where he usually drops it when he comes downstairs. He runs up to his room to check there, but it's not beside his desk either. He tries to mentally retrace his steps, but he's had a lot on his mind the past couple days. He'll search around school before class starts.

He finds his bag between third and fourth hours, and it's not a pleasant experience.

One of the students who works at the front desk gets Kurt out of class. He leaves his literature book open on his desk with his pen in the crease and follows her to the teachers' lounge. It feels wrong being in this room, especially when all the teachers are in class. It's empty save for Sheriff Sylvester who motions him into a chair. She has on a brown track suit today that looks closer to a police uniform than anything else she owns. It makes her even more intimidating than usual.

"Hello again, Kurt. How are you feeling after your near death experience on Sunday?"

"As well as can be expected after being scared out of my skin by a gun going off. Do you have more questions for me?"

The Sheriff takes a seat opposite Kurt with a smug, hungry look on her face. "As a matter of fact, I do have a few questions. I started out the morning thinking this would almost be a social call. You see, someone found this in front of the Crashdown." The Sheriff lifts his messenger bag onto the table. "But then I looked inside."

Kurt's heartbeat trebles and his stomach flips over. He remembers now. He went out to get the morning paper for his dad and had found a package waiting. The strap slipped from his shoulder, and he thought he'd come back for it in a minute after he hauled the box inside. He tries to wipe the panic off his face and focus on the moment instead of berating himself for his two colossal mistakes.

The Sheriff opens the flap and lifts out the crumbled, blood and ketchup-stained uniform shirt with an alien head-shaped "Kurt" nametag pinned over the chest. He should have gotten rid of it immediately and not let finding out about aliens derail him.

"Now, if I have this shirt tested, Mr. Hummel, what am I going to find?"

"W-What do you mean, Sheriff? I spilled ketchup on myself. I told you that about a thousand times. Can I go now?"

Sheriff Sylvester sits back heavily in her chair and surveys Kurt with narrowed eyes. "One more thing."

She pulls out a manila file folder with a faded label on the tab and flips it open while she talks.

"Did you know I've lived in Roswell my whole life? I was born here. My parents moved here in 1948 just a few years before my older sister was born. They were obsessed with this town. They were famous alien hunters. Sure, they're fringe even by fringe standards, but it doesn't mean they never found anything interesting. This was taken in 1969."

She slides a photograph over to Kurt. His instinct is to flinch away because it's of a corpse, but then he sees it: a glowing handprint on pale skin. His heart constricts in his chest. The Sherriff replaces the picture in the file and flips it closed. She folds her hands on top and gazes levelly at him.

"I'm going to have to ask you to lift up your shirt."

Kurt's heart kick starts with a jolt. His brain is a beat behind, and then all the implications of that handprint on a corpse hit him. If Blaine can heal, can he …? But it's too terrible to think about, and even if he_ could_, he never _would_. More present is the fact that he can't show his stomach to the Sheriff or she'll know there are aliens in Roswell, and it's only a matter of degrees until she figures out about Blaine. And, God, why did she, of all people, have to believe in aliens?

"Sheriff, please," he stalls.

"Your porcelain skin is evidence, and not showing me is obstruction. Sure, a judge probably won't punish a surly teenager with no priors, but he will order you to comply, and then you'll have to do it in front of me, an officer of the court, and your dad."

Kurt climbs to his feet shakily and pulls out his button down and undershirt from his pants. His fists are full of layers – he has on a vest too – when he raises his shirt up to his chest. He waits with baited breath for an 'a-ha!' that never comes. He glances down. His stomach is creamy peach with no hint of a glowing handprint anywhere.

The Sheriff nods. "It faded on the corpse too. You're free to go."

Kurt reaches for his bag haltingly, not sure if he can take it. She pushes it towards him, but keeps the uniform shirt. He rushes from the room without bothering to tuck in his shirt and make himself immaculate again.

"Porcelain," Sheriff Sylvester calls. "Whoever you're protecting …. Be careful."

After Kurt flees from the room, Sue sits in the hard plastic chair for a few moments ruminating before she takes out her phone and dials the FBI field office in Albuquerque. She has someone there who investigates the stranger happenings in Roswell with her. These kids might not realize it, but this is only the latest in a string of unexplained events in this little town.

She's tempted to ask the receptionist to connect her to the Honey Badger, but refrains.

"I'm calling for Agent Terri Del Monico."

o

Kurt sends a frantic, typo-ridden text message while he runs down the hallway with his shirt tails hanging out. For the first time ever, he doesn't care that he looks a mess. Tears are stinging his eyes. Blaine's life is in danger. Kurt feels every one of Blaine's secret fears and all of his loneliness that comes with their connection, but now he knows it firsthand too.

This is the greatest fear: discovery.

He paces beneath the bleachers while he waits with one hand clenched around his phone and the other unconsciously pulling at his hair. The sound of whistles and shouts from the far side of the football field means a gym class is outside somewhere. Kurt can't see them, so he assumes they can't see him either.

"Kurt?"

He spins at the familiar voice and rushes into Blaine's arms. The shorter boy stumbles, but catches their weight.

"Hey, Kurt. What's going on?"

Kurt pulls away when he realizes he's literally thrown himself at Blaine and dances back a few paces. Blaine looks so serene, like Kurt summoning him out of class for a meeting beneath the bleachers could possibly be a good thing.

_Oh._

One part of Kurt really wants to explore the meaning of that, but they have pressing matters to discuss right now. Life and death matters. The very interested part of his anatomy will have to wait.

"Sheriff Sylvester knows," he blurts.

Blaine's bewildered smile fades into a deep frown. Kurt sees the calm façade fall away to reveal the scared, lonely boy beneath. He wants to reach out and hold Blaine and tell him everything will be okay, but he doesn't know that, and he can't stand lying to someone who trusts him so deeply.

"What? How?"

Kurt explains quickly about her alien hunter parents and the photograph from 1969. Blaine tries to run a hand through his hair, but he can't make it through the gel. Kurt almost smiles. Blaine swallows thickly and turns around to begin pacing the same path Kurt had been on.

"We have to go."

"Okay," Kurt says.

"No, I mean …." Blaine exhales harshly through his nose. He looks so broken when he says, "We, meaning Santana and me. We can't stay here anymore. It's too dangerous. We have to leave Roswell and never come back."

Kurt's heart breaks.

o

Santana jogs down the broken sidewalk and slides into the passenger seat. Blaine looks small and injured, but determined.

"Where are your things?" Blaine asks.

She shrugs. "I'm wearing them."

Honestly, everything she owns is shit anyway. Why would she want to bring reminders of her terrible past into their new future? She'll start over from scratch wherever they end up. Maybe she can be a cheerleader at their next school. She's kind of always wanted to be one, but it's too attention-grabbing in Roswell to wear the Comet's uniform.

Now that it's time to leave, she sees the hesitation in Blaine's eyes. He doesn't want to leave behind everything he's ever known. Against her better judgment, Santana lets her kinder nature take over. She reaches over and takes his hand. They hold hands a little awkwardly over the console while Blaine pulls away from the curb and into the traffic of Main Street. She doesn't like showing affection like this, but she knows it gives Blaine the courage he needs to make tough decisions.

"Where are we going?"

"No idea. I don't know how we're even going to do this. We need new identities and cover stories and jobs and –"

"Hey. Let Auntie 'Tana take care of that. You don't grow up in the bad part of Roswell without picking up a few tips. I'll make sure we're taken care of, and then you can do your worst and make us a normal family."

At the stoplight on the corner of Main and Ash, Santana finally notices the strangely dressed pedestrians. There are always aliens in Roswell – the costumed kind – but tonight it's over the top. The number of rubber tentacles and bulbous eyes are off the charts. It's the Crash Festival. In the day they've taken to let Blaine pack and say vague goodbyes, Friday has arrived. It's almost sundown, so everyone will be heading out to the desert now.

Their lives have changed in the five days since Blaine made the monumentally stupid decision to use his powers on a human.

"How did Lady Face take it?" she wonders.

Blaine flinches. However hard Kurt took the news, it's just as difficult for Blaine. Worse, because he's the one who has to drive away when what he really wants is to be loved. Santana's harsh, but she's not without compassion. She knows how long Blaine has been pining in secret for Kurt. She rubs her thumb along the back of his hand, and he squeezes his eyes shut to hold in the tears.

"I can drive, if you want me to," Santana says quietly. "I don't have anything in this town worth staying for. Everything I care about is right here."

She squeezes his hand. Blaine takes a shaky breath. He eases off the brake, but turns into an alley between the drug store and a diner they never go to because the Crashdown is so much better so they can switch places. As they're passing, Blaine tugs her into a hug that she tries to wriggle out of.

"Thanks," he murmurs into her ear.

She goes still, rolls her eyes, and huffs out a breath. Actually, she really loves Blaine's hugs. He has a way of conveying with two arms how much he cares about her that puts a lump in her throat. But she doesn't want to get weepy right now. One of them has to hold it together, and it's not going to be Blaine. It's never Blaine, and that's fine with Santana. They work because they complement each other, and this is what she can do for her best friend – her brother, actually, is how she thinks of him. She has to get him to let go or she'll crack with emotion, so she kisses him quickly on the cheek. He detaches from her.

Thank God.

Headlights flash across them as a silver sedan pulls into the alley and boxes them in. Santana is not at all surprised when Kurt Hummel climbs out of the passenger side.

o

Twenty minutes earlier, Kurt sits on his terrace pouring his broken heart into his journal. He understands why Blaine is leaving Roswell, even if part of him tries to think up reasons why he shouldn't. But Kurt is a realist. After years of bullying, he's formed a low opinion of human tolerance. He knows what will happen if Blaine is discovered. It's infinitely better to know Blaine is alive and well somewhere in the world than the alternative. He's resigned himself to saying goodbye to the boy he's just discovered can make him happy.

A shoe stomping on the terrace behind Kurt startles him. He snaps his journal shut and twists around in his seat. Tina is in full costume for the Crash Festival. She's going for a Goth alien ensemble with black leather and silver eye makeup that's not any one specific character that Kurt can identify.

But Tina is clearly not here to talk about the Crash Festival.

"You listen to me, Kurt Hummel. Just because I'm shy and quiet doesn't mean you get to ignore me. The next words that come out of your mouth are going to be the whole truth or so help me I'm marching into Sheriff Sylvester's office and telling her everything I know." She cocks an eyebrow at him. "Well? Talk!"

Kurt's eyes fall to his journal and back up to Tina. What can it hurt now? Blaine is gone, and he's never coming back. They've gotten so good at hiding in plain sight no one will be able to find them.

"What do you know?"

Tina is taken aback by the calm question. She falters for a minute.

"I know that there's blood on your order book, which means you were shot. I know Blaine Anderson did something to you. I know that you've been avoiding me since then. I know … oh, _Kurt_. You've been crying."

Kurt ducks his head to hide his itchy, red-rimmed eyes. Tina perches on the edge of the lounger and takes his hand.

"Kurt, I wish you'd talk to me like you used to," she says gently.

He nods slowly. "Okay. I will. But, Tina, you have to promise not to flip out."

"Promise."

She doesn't keep her promise.

Kurt talks for roughly twenty seconds before Tina literally runs away, but downstairs is the scene of the crime, and being in the Crashdown only makes her panic more pronounced. Kurt swears and follows her. She's already climbing into her car. She isn't screaming – that's not Tina's style – but she's breathing unevenly and staring at the world with startled eyes.

"Maybe you shouldn't drive."

She's not listening. She's babbling about aliens and getting away from them and every negative conspiracy theory associated with aliens that's ever been floated. Kurt's forgotten about his heartache for the moment because he's seriously concerned for his life as Tina cuts off a pickup truck as she peals out of the parking lot.

"How are you okay with this?" she demands. "You've been touched by an alien! Oh my God! What if he infected you with something? Oh my God! You might have an alien baby growing in your stomach!"

She dissolves into hysterics again. A rational discussion about reproductive systems will get nowhere, so he focuses instead on keeping her from weaving over the double yellow lines that run through the center of town.

"They're still the same people we've always known, Tina! Who cares if they're a different species?"

"They? Blaine's not the only one?"

Kurt is getting very close to slapping her to snap her out of it, but he sees Blaine's car coming in the opposite direction. His heart leaps into his chest. Blaine isn't gone yet! The car pulls into an alley.

"Tina, turn!"

When she doesn't, he grabs the wheel and jerks harshly. Nearly careening into the brick wall of the drugstore has the same effect as a slap to the face. She quiets down, brings the car to a stop, and shifts into park as Kurt flings open the door and leaps out.

Kurt waits by the car, unsure if he's made things better or worse by giving in to his spontaneous desire to see Blaine once more. Santana glares at him.

"Say your goodbyes and move your car," she orders.

But it's Blaine his eyes are fixed on. He still looks broken, and now there are tears collecting in his eyes.

"I'll never say goodbye to you," Kurt promises.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Tina reach for him to pull him back. But he has eyes only for Blaine. Tears skip down Blaine's cheeks, because he thinks this has to be goodbye. But it doesn't.

"I have a plan."

He doesn't have a plan. He has no idea how to fix this, but he wishes he does, so the words tumble out anyway. He strides forward and pulls Blaine into a hug. He whispers earnestly into his ear.

"_I'll never say goodbye to you."_

* * *

**CRASH FESTIVAL**

"So what's the plan?"

Santana's question shatters the moment, and Blaine and Kurt realize they can't stand around in an alley hugging forever, although they really wish they could. She fixes Kurt with a steady eye, and panic flares in his chest. He has no plan. Not even the beginnings of a plan, and she obviously knows it.

"We have to divert Sheriff Sylvester's suspicion."

He states the obvious to stall, and it draws an eye roll from Santana. She saunters over to them, but Tina hangs back a little reluctantly. They're all waiting expectantly for his brilliant plan, which he doesn't have.

"The easiest place to do that will be the Crash Festival," Kurt goes on.

"Because …?"

Blaine glances between Kurt and Santana. There's something more to the conversation going on between them. He has the sinking feeling that Kurt doesn't actually have a plan and that they're going to have to say goodbye after all. But then Tina starts talking quickly, and Kurt is adding in details. Blaine wonders if this was Kurt's plan that Tina clued into faster than the others or if this is actually Tina's plan that Kurt has clued into.

Over the next quarter hour, they hash out a plan and go their separate ways to each get ready for their part in it. While the girls race back to their cars, knowing time is of the essence, Blaine and Kurt linger. Their hands slip apart slowly as they back away while never breaking eye contact, and their fingertips curl into a hold when they're almost too far apart to touch.

"I'll see you there?"

Blaine doesn't mean it to come as a question, but he can't shake the gnawing fear that Kurt will have to break his promise. If not today, then one day, he'll have to say goodbye.

"I'll see you there."

o

Blaine dislikes the Crash Festival for obvious reasons. It reminds him of the crash that killed his people, and the grotesque masks are a reminder that he will always be a monster to humans. Most humans, he corrects himself. There are some beautiful souls in the world, like Kurt. Just thinking his name puts a smile on Blaine's lips.

Santana links her arm in his as they make their way through the crowd. Smoke from fireworks curls through the sharp light directed onto the crowd from the temporary rigging, and a band on the stage plays a song with a heavy bass line. Prosthetics and shining fabrics cover the crowd. There are a few hipsters milling about, too over it to dress up, but in sublime irony, they're all mistaken for the eleventh Doctor.

Blaine hadn't planned on coming to the Crash Festival, so his costume is basic. All black clothes: heavy boots, tight leather pants, clinging t-shirt, fake gun in a holster at his hip. He's a generic badass male lead from whatever movie or show. He doesn't know. Kurt picked out his clothes. Santana is wearing something leather in a dark red shade. He thinks she's Sigourney Weaver, but he's not really sure.

The crowd moves erratically, and they're jostled around as they pick their way through the periphery searching for Sheriff Sylvester and trying to surreptitiously catch her eye. In the parking lot, Tina will be preparing for her part. He searches around for Kurt and spots him up towards the front of the crowd. He's dressed in a long black leather trench coat with red buckles around the chest.

"Who are you dressed as?"

Kurt flushes slightly. "John Crichton from _Farscape_. Artie made me watch a marathon this summer. It's actually an epic love story, once you get past the Jim Henson alien puppets."

"Oh. And who am I?"

Kurt's cheeks burn. "Aeryn Sun. Also from _Farscape_." Blaine lifts an eyebrow, urging him to continue with his explanation. "She's an alien who looks completely human. She and Crichton … they're soulmates from across the universe."

Blaine's lips part in surprise. The world spins around them, but he keeps his balance because of Kurt.

"Sorry for the gender swap."

"Don't apologize. I think this costume is great."

Santana makes a disgruntled sound. "Focus, boys. We're here to save ourselves, not moon over each other. There's the Sheriff! Kurt, go."

With a final look, Kurt melts into the crowd. Blaine and Santana move quickly into the Sheriff's line of sight. Sheriff Sylvester follows them to the edge of the festival where the lights are rigged high on metal towers and only a few vendors have set up booths hocking cheap merchandise to tourists or kitschy food. Santana sends a mass text with the go ahead code.

"Let's hope they can pull it off," she murmurs.

"And she takes the bait," he answers.

o

Sue fixes her gaze on Blaine Anderson and Santana Lopez. From everything Becky has told her, these are the two to watch. They were almost certainly in the Crashdown that day, and Sue would bet her badge that closet case hair gel addict is the one who left the handprint on Hummel's stomach. She's not letting them out of her sight until she finds something that will destroy him.

A scream rents the night air. Sue's head swivels in the direction of the parking lot and instinct takes over. She stands head and shoulders over most of the people in attendance, so as she runs towards the sound, she can see headlights shining against a row of cars. The car door is opened and the engine of the silver sedan idles still. A girl lies on the ground, and over her crouches a small figure covered by a white sheet with two eye holes. The low rent ghost looks up, and then turns and flees.

Sue stops in her tracks. Part of her wants to play the Sheriff and check on the girl, but another part is shocked by her daughter running away from her. Every year, Becky comes to the Crash Festival as E.T. in his Halloween costume. No one else does that.

"Oh my God, Tina!"

Kurt's cry of alarm snaps Sue back into the moment. Whatever reason Becky had for running away, the pressing matter right now is the girl who's been struck by a car. Her own or her parents', Sue realizes, because she's had to give Tina Cohen-Chang a speeding ticket before. Her investigative instincts put the pieces together. Someone – Becky? But that's too crazy to believe – tried to steal her car, she jumped in front of it to stop them, and got hit.

Sue dashes over to where Kurt is standing over his friend with tears pooling in his eyes. Her jaw sets when she sees what he's looking at. There is a glowing silver handprint over her heart.

"Tina!" Kurt shouts.

"I got clipped by a car. I didn't rupture an eardrum," the girl grouses.

Sue couches down next to her, and Tina lets her elbows slip so she falls back down to the ground and away from Sue's angry face. The Sheriff touches the handprint. Sure enough, her fingers come away silver. She stands up abruptly and marches back towards the crowded Crash Festival.

"Uh, Sheriff? Tina got hit by a car. Aren't you going to take her statement or something?"

"Later!" Sue shouts over her shoulder.

She pushes through the crowd. Each person she sends sprawling into the dusty ground only serves to heighten her rage. These kids had it in their minds to throw her off their trail, and she could respect a good attempt at it, but she would leave them with no delusions that they'd been successful.

She finds him by a white trailer that advertises funnel cakes made in the shape of alien heads. He starts backwards when she invades his personal space. She grabs him by his elbow, hauls him behind the booth, and shoves him up against the corrugated metal wall. He's so much shorter, she has to bend down to yell at him. He looks terrified of her fury, and rightly so.

"You listen to me. You might look wholesome as a prep school boy, but you're not fooling me. I know that what goes on inside that pampered, privileged teenage mind of yours doesn't match what's on the outside."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Blaine insists. His voice is higher than usual, and all his nonverbals are screaming out how afraid he is of her.

"Don't play games with me, Anderson." She holds up the fingers covered in paint. "You went up to Kurt Hummel in that cafe, and you did something to him. I want to know what it is."

"No, I didn't!" His eyes are wide, and his is voice shaking. "When the gun went off, I ran away. I'm not proud of it, okay? But that's what I did. Is that against the law, Sheriff? Are you arresting me?"

"No," she spits. "Your parents would have you out in an hour. But I am going to find out what the truth is. You can count on it. I'd say you're a real smart one, Blaine, but you didn't even let the paint dry."

When she lets go of the fabric of his t-shirt, he slips down the wall a few inches. She turns with a sneer and marches away.

o

The announcer takes the stage at ten minutes to midnight to whip the crowd into a frenzy. Overhead and to the left, a flying saucer with flashing lights along the middle hangs from a zipline. Santana and Blaine stand by the chain link fence with their fingers curled through the diamond openings. They watch the cartoonish scene with forlorn expressions.

"I don't always get you," Santana says. "You're so into embracing who we are, but you fade into the background so well."

"I don't know how to feel about us sometimes," Blaine responds. "Just like you don't."

She makes a noise of disagreement, but he cuts her off.

"You're desperate to find a way back to our home planet, but you're so angry that we can't be like everyone else. I see the way you stare at all the girls who wear cheerleading uniforms."

"Yeah, because they're all hot," she deflects.

"And you're not mad I told Kurt our secret. You're mad that you don't have anyone to tell."

Santana's face screws up in discomfort. "I fucking hate it when you go all perceptive, and you know that. Just tell me, once and for all, do you want to go home? Or back where we came from, however you want to phrase it."

Blaine considers. "Roswell is my home. If there's any way for us to stay, I want to. But that doesn't mean I don't want to know who we are and where we came from. Most of all, I want to be with you – my real family. Wherever we end up, I want us to be there together."

Santana nods slowly and forcefully. "Me too."

When the countdown begins, the whole crowd shouts like it's New Year's Eve. The zipline releases the spaceship, and it swings down from its high perch and collides with the rocky ground. Bits of the ship fly off, and the whole thing catches fire. Among the wreckage, plastic alien bodies burn with the ship.

Blaine and Santana watch their tragedy play out before their eyes while the crowd around them cheers.

o

After the debris of the crash has been extinguished and the crowd goes back to partying through the night, Santana and Blaine walk towards the parking lot with their hands linked and eyes turned away from the prosthetics and flashy costumes. A flash of stillness through the surging crowd catches his eye. Kurt is standing alone above the festival grounds on a rocky ridge. Blaine tells Santana he'll be at the car soon.

The ridge has a well-worn footpath that takes him directly to Kurt. They're shielded from the festival by a jutting boulder. Blaine has never been so grateful for a natural formation in his life. It means he can stand closer to Kurt than would normally be tolerated, can let his eyes trail to full, pink lips, can reach up and play with an errant lock of hair. Kurt gasps when Blaine's fingers tug his hair gently back into place.

"Sorry," he murmurs. "I know you probably hate people touching your hair."

"Actually, no," Kurt breathes.

His lips quirk into a self-deprecating grin. Blaine wonders how often he could get away with running his fingers through Kurt's silky hair. He loves the way it feels against his skin, and the way it makes Kurt's eyelids flutter.

But his encounter with the Sheriff replays in his mind. He knows what he has to say. It rips his heart out to push the words from his brain to his tongue, but he does because he cares about Kurt too much to stay silent.

"Kurt, it's not safe. I mean, for you and me to … it's not safe."

"I don't care," Kurt says quickly.

Blaine sucks in a deep breath, averts his eyes, blinks away the moisture building. His chest aches so fiercely he wonders if broken hearts can be literal. His chest heaves with the effort of keeping his resolve. He'd do anything for Kurt's happiness. Anything but put him in danger.

"Kurt, I really, _really_" – his voice breaks, he needs a few seconds – "really wish this could be something more, but it can't. We're just …"

Emotion steals his words, but Kurt finishes the sentence with a sigh of resignation.

"Different."

Blaine is sure his eyes are plaintive, and one more word from Kurt will make him bend and break and give in to everything he knows can't happen, for Kurt's sake. But Kurt is stronger than that. He sees Blaine is about to break and doesn't tempt him, doesn't twist his emotions for his own ends, lets him turn slowly and stumble away. Blaine falls even more in love with him.

"Blaine!" Kurt calls suddenly.

He turns hopefully, but Kurt looks steadier now. The longing has gone out of his eyes, and Blaine recognizes the strength Kurt projects when he's hurting and doesn't want anyone to know it. He's seen it for years when Kurt picks himself up after locker checks and when he didn't have a solo during Vocal Adrenaline performances.

"I never got to thank you. For saving my life."

He hates himself for making this side of Kurt return for the first time in five days. He would hate himself more for putting Kurt in danger, but that's less prescient than this. After everything this boy has done for him – made him feel so deeply, accepted him completely, risked everything to protect him – he doesn't deserve this. But what else can Blaine do? He can't be a spontaneous, reckless teenager. He doesn't have that luxury.

"Thank you," Blaine returns, "for bringing me to life."


	2. Come in Peace

**ROSWELL**

**PART TWO**

**COME IN PEACE**

_October 5_

_Since I found out about Blaine and Santana, I've been thinking a lot about secrets. Sometimes secrets keep people from feeling like they belong. And sometimes secrets make you feel like you do belong._

* * *

**CZECHOSLOVAKIANS**

Blaine knows perfectly well that he can't be seen with Kurt too often for his own protection, but he also can't avoid Kurt entirely or it will raise suspicion too. This is how Blaine justifies texting Kurt all weekend. The pads of his fingers are sore from tapping the screen, and he's planning how to bring up purchasing an unlimited texting package with his parents. It's also how he justifies stopping at the Crashdown for coffee on the way to school.

Kurt pauses behind the counter when Blaine walks in and lets a slow, shy smile turn up the corners of his lips. He's not working, so he can't bring Blaine's order – black coffee with cinnamon – but he does add a bran muffin to the tray when the waitress takes Blaine his coffee. Blaine really hates bran muffins, but the waitress tells him Kurt bakes them every morning, and suddenly it's the best muffin he's ever tasted.

"My compliments to the baker," Blaine says loudly enough for Kurt to hear.

Blaine couldn't stop looking at Kurt if he wanted to, and he really, really doesn't want to. Those pretty blue-green eyes make his heart skip beats, and the tug in his chest turns into a contended purr whenever Kurt looks his way.

Kurt leaves the diner with a goodbye called to his dad, and a minute later, Blaine's phone buzzes with a text from Kurt. He's still grinning like an idiot when he pulls up to Santana's house. She slides down into the passenger seat.

"The perfect Blaine Anderson is late?" Her eyes dart down. "Is that a Crashdown coffee cup?"

Blaine glances guiltily at the paper cup in the holder. Santana won't let him off easily.

"We had an agreement, Blaine. Just because Hummel knows doesn't mean he gets to be a part of this." She motions between them. "We're a perfectly functioning dynamic duo. We don't need a third wheel dragging us down."

"I know, I know. I'm sticking to the agreement. I'll stay away from Kurt just like I did before. We don't want to get caught, but we don't want to make Kurt an accomplice either."

"Speak for yourself," Santana mutters. "I just want Lady Face out of our business."

Blaine's brow sets in a firm frown, but he lets the topic go without comment. He knows what he has to do. It had broken his heart to tell Kurt they couldn't be together, and it hurts every time they pass in the hallway and can't share more than a fleeting look, but he has to suffer through it.

"No more coffee at the Crashdown," Santana insists. "We go there together on the weekends or after school like usual and that's it."

Blaine has no intention of following Santana's directive. The Crashdown might not have the best coffee in town, but he's going back for a cup every day anyway. He can't spend excessive amounts of time with Kurt, but who says he can't abandon Starbucks for more reasonably priced coffee? And if Kurt is there for a silent conversation of meaningful looks and slow blinks, Blaine won't complain.

o

The dinner rush at the Crashdown starts at five-thirty, which gives Kurt roughly ten minutes to change his shirt and find a new apron without congealing milkshake on it. Considering that Tina is following him around and talking incessantly about topics they shouldn't discuss in public, he's not hopeful they'll be back out front in time.

"They're here way more than normal," she says, as if Kurt is arguing the point. "Nancy told me yesterday that Blaine's been coming in for coffee every day this week. Do you know who comes in here for coffee, Kurt? No one. Because our coffee sucks, Kurt, as you're always telling your dad."

Kurt resigns himself to changing in front of Tina. It's not like he hasn't done it before, but he tries not to make it a habit of being even partially naked in front of anyone. He strips down and shoves the dirty shirt into his locker. His undershirt is soaked through too, so he pulls it over his head only to find his skin is sticky. He darts into the bathroom.

"Really, Tina? This is the men's restroom."

She doesn't seem to even register the statement she's so obsessed with talking about Blaine and Santana.

"What do we even know about these people? How do we know they're not three feet tall, green, and slimy?"

"Because they're not?"

"You know what else doesn't particularly please me? These powers. How do we know they aren't going to just wiggle their noses and poof us into oblivion?"

"I guess we don't."

Kurt tosses the paper towel into the trash bin and tugs on his fresh shirts. The apron will take too long to clean, so he steals a spare from the backroom. Tina is still hot on his heels as he pushes out the swinging door and a wave of noise from the kitchen and dining area washes over their conversation. He nearly collides with Janine coming into the break room.

"Okay. You are being so casual about this. Kurt, we are dealing with alie –"

He slaps his hand over her mouth and hisses into her ear.

"Don't say that word in public."

"Sorry." She doesn't look it. "So what do we know about these … Czechoslovakians? Are they good Czechoslovakians? Bad Czechoslovakians? No, they're just random Czechoslovakians. For all we know, they don't have their passports."

"So … who's Czechoslovakian?"

Kurt and Tina start and spin to find Mike Chang standing across the counter. He has a pleasant smile and unassuming handsome features. He comes into the Crashdown pretty regularly, but Kurt is sure it's not for the Green Martian milkshake he always orders. Tina refuses to acknowledge the crush he obviously harbors.

"I th-thought you only wanted to st-start an A-Asian club," Tina says.

The way she falls back on her stutter around Mike tells Kurt way more than she's ever said in private. Kurt hurries off with the meals for table three. When he comes back, Mike is gone and Tina is pouring milk over the metal mixing shield for a Blood of Alien smoothie. Her mouth sets into a firm line.

"Czechoslovakian at nine o'clock," she mutters.

Kurt's neck swivels on instinct, and his eyes lock onto Blaine sliding into the booth nearest the door. His eyes soften, and a wistful sigh escapes his lips. Before he knows he's doing it, he's leaning on the counter with his chin propped on his fist and blinking besotted eyes at the boy across the diner. Blaine meets his gaze and returns the tender, longing look. For a minute, Kurt swears they're alone in the crowded room.

"I'm happy you found a boy to make eyes at, kid, but we're a little swamped."

Kurt starts when his dad's voice cuts through his faraway world. He shakes his head, because while he heard his dad, he didn't comprehend the words. Burt chuckles lightly.

"He must be some boy."

"He is," Kurt sighs.

"This one's actually gay?"

"Oh, yeah."

His dad grunts, and Kurt realizes too late how that must sound to his dad's ears. He tries to walk it back, but his dad claps him on the shoulder and goes back to work. He's the owner, but he's not above helping the waiters run trays to tables. Tina is back at his elbow in a second.

"Kurt, have you heard nothing I've said?" she hisses. "You can't go making eyes at Blaine like that. Don't you have an agreement anyway about staying away from each other? You know, _for your own protection_."

Kurt nods even as his eyes drift over to Blaine again.

Tina doesn't drop the issue all week. On Wednesday, she crosses the line into actual, full-fledged craziness. They're sitting in the courtyard enjoying the slightly cooler weather that comes with the beginning of October during lunch when she crosses the thin line.

"We need someone with a little perspective on the Czechoslovakians. We need Artie in on this."

Kurt chokes on his grilled chicken sandwich. He gestures across the courtyard to where Artie is in a heated discussion with Sam Evans and Jacob Ben Israel – on camera, no less – about the merits of various Roswell conspiracy theories and whether the Roswell aliens are more Vulcan or Klingon.

"Okay, I haven't said anything before because we're dealing with Czechoslovakians, but … Tina, this isn't at all like you. You accept everyone no matter what without question. What's different about Blaine and Santana?"

She ducks her head and picks at the paper tray of French fries he'd tried to talk her out of eating for lunch every day because they get enough saturated fat at the Crashdown.

"It's not the same for me, Kurt. I don't have a special bond with either of them. There's no rainbow connection drawing out sighs and heart eyes."

Kurt's cheeks heat up, and he fights to hide a shy smile. Just thinking about Blaine turns him to mush. He knows he's been obvious, but he thought he'd maintained some kind of decorum.

"I'm not saying it's a bad thing, Kurt. I'm happy you have someone now, even if he is Czechoslovakian. I'm just not completely comfortable around them."

He sighs, because he can't change the way Tina feels even if he wants to shake her and tell her that _nothing at all has changed_. Kurt had a moment of panic after Blaine told him, but that has completely vanished now. It wouldn't matter to him if Blaine did have green skin. He's still _Blaine_.

"You're thinking about him," Tina observes.

"So now you can read minds?"

"No. But I can read your heart eyes," she teases.

Kurt huffs, but shrugs it off quickly.

"The four of us are stuck with each other. We all know this secret, and we're the only ones who do. I'm not saying you have to be best friends with them, but maybe if you got to know them a little bit you'd see that there's nothing to be jumpy about. Can you please try?"

Tina sighs, but hitches a tight smile onto her lips.

"Yeah, Kurt. For you, I can try."

When the lunch bell rings to call the students to their third hour classes, Kurt hugs Tina tightly before hurrying off to history. She loiters around the lunch table for a few minutes, taking longer than necessary to gather up their trash. She doesn't notice she's attracted a silent watcher until she meets him by the trashcan.

"Czechoslovakia hasn't been a country for seventeen years."

Tina stops short and frowns deeply at Mike. "W-What do you w-want, Mike?"

"Just to tell you that Czechoslovakia hasn't been a country for seventeen years. I thought it might be important since we have a geography test next," he says breezily.

Tina can feel the beginnings of a smile turning up the corners of her mouth. Mike spins and walks away, but so gracefully it's like a dance. She clutches her backpack to her chest and shakes the curtains of her hair in front of her face so no one can see her secretive grin. She feels like Kurt has looked for weeks.

Maybe making some new friends wouldn't be so bad after all.

* * *

**DREAMWALKING**

The radio in the old red Jetta blasts _I Kissed a Girl_ as loud as it will go, which is still not high enough to drown out the normal volume of Tina's voice as she sings along. For once, her parents have let her borrow the car without excessive begging and justification required. She doesn't want to think about why they're keen to get her out of the house in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

"_Taste of her cherry chapstick_ … Oh, no."

Tina comes to a halt at a four-way stop. Through the windshield, she catches Santana's eye. The other girl is walking in the general direction of downtown towards the Crashdown, Blaine's house, and everything remotely interesting for a teenager to do on a Sunday. She has two options: ignore Santana or offer her a ride. On any other day, she'd choose the first option, but she'd made a promise to Kurt. She hits the button to roll down the passenger side window and peers out.

"D-Do you need a-a ride?"

Santana regards her imperiously, and Tina honestly thinks she's going to say no, but it's the middle of the afternoon, and the sun is scorching. She slides into the passenger seat without offering her thanks.

"Where are you g-going?"

"Blaine's. It's on Murray."

Tina knows that, but she wants to keep talking to a minimum, so she pretends she didn't. For a few minutes, they sit in uncomfortable silence until Santana starts fidgeting. From the corner of her eye, Tina can see she's sweating around her temples. She must have been walking forever to get from her side of town to here.

"Doesn't this thing have air conditioning?"

"Y-Yes, it's o-on all the way."

There's a reason her parents always let her borrow the Jetta. It's old and on its last leg. If she crashes it or spills milkshake all over, it's no great loss. Santana doesn't want to accept that, though. She reaches forward and holds her hand in front of the vent. Suddenly, there's a hurricane blowing inside the sedan whipping their hair around and blasting their faces with ice cold air.

"What are you doing!" Tina cries.

"I'm just making it more comfortable in here."

There's a sharp tone in her voice indicating Tina is a totally irrational person who needs to crawl under a rock and die so she doesn't further irritate Santana or else there will be consequences.

"Well, don't do that in my car."

Santana sits back heavily and crosses her arms. She's glaring at Tina's profile with narrowed eyes, and it's making her exceptionally nervous. Her knuckles turn white against the steering wheel when Santana's finger takes up a tapping rhythm on her upper arm.

"This sound system is pathetic," Santana says suddenly.

She holds her hand in front of the CD player and the volume shoots up by double. It startles Tina so badly that she shouts and serves into oncoming traffic. Santana is incapable of keeping her criticism to herself.

"I said don't do that!" Tina shouts.

"I'm just trying to help. Why are you freaking out?" Santana yells back.

She's absolutely terrifying when she narrows her eyes and shakes her head like that. She resembles a cobra recoiling to strike, and Tina doesn't care what promise she made to Kurt, she can't be friends with this girl.

"You know what –"

"Stop!" Santana interrupts.

"Don't tell me what to –"

Santana gestures out the front window a second too late. Tina slams on the brakes, but can't stop in time. She rear ends the last car anyone in the world wants to rear end: a police car. The bumper hangs off the left side of the Le Car with red and blue lights on top. Sheriff Sylvester climbs out of the driver's side with a sour, tight-lipped face. Her eyes bulge when she sees the damage done to her Le Car.

"Great," Tina mutters, as she rolls down the window. "See what you made me do?"

"_Me?_" Santana protests.

The Sheriff appears at Tina's window and leans down to rest her arms on the opening and glare at the girls.

"Do you know what kind of car this is? It's a classic 1979 Le Car. There isn't a mechanic in Roswell who even knows this car exists. I have to take it to Albuquerque to have it serviced. For your sake, I hope you have insurance because a lucky cricket isn't going to bring honor to your family or get you off the hook for this damage."

Santana barely stifles a laugh, and Tina flashes her a sharp look. She's caught between two terrifying women, one of them making racist comments and the other finding them funny. She feels like crying, smacking Kurt for getting her into this situation, and crying some more. She _hates_ making new friends, and he knows that.

"O-Of c-course I have in-s-surance," she mumbles.

o

"That girl is just an accident waiting to happen," Santana summarizes. "One day, she'll break and stutter out a full confession to the Sheriff."

Blaine sighs deeply from his place at the head of the bed where he's doing his trigonometry homework on his lap. Santana is stretched out on her stomach reading all the books they'll be studying in English this year. She holds her thumb along the edge, lets the pages flip by rapidly, tosses it onto the floor, and jots down notes on the major plot points of each. She peers up at him with a quizzical lift in her brows.

"Santana … can you at least make an effort?"

"No."

"Come on. Think about it. People see movies with aliens killing humans, and if you keep acting like this she'll think that's who we are."

"So? That's the way to deal with this. The evil alien thing can work for us. We keep her in a constant state of fear, and she'll keep her mouth shut. Or we could just kill her." Blaine glowers. "Kidding. God."

With a shake of his head, Blaine goes back to his homework. "You know, you'll get more out of the books if you read them the human way."

"And you'd have more time to have a life if you did it the alien way."

He finishes a problem before nudging her leg with his toe to get her attention. She looks up curiously to find him giving her the look she calls the 'Blaine really doesn't want you to be mad at him for pushing an issue, but you're being a raging bitch and he has to say something for your own good.' She sighs.

"All right. Go ahead."

"I think isolating Tina and provoking her is going to have really bad consequences for us."

As it turns out, Blaine is right, and Santana comes around to his way of thinking on Tuesday night. She has to get out of the house because her foster mother has gone off the deep end again, so she walks to the Crashdown for dinner and opens her laptop to start typing a paper on _Frankenstein_.

She isn't more than two paragraphs in when the Sheriff walks past her booth and up to the counter where Tina is mixing milkshakes. The girl practically jumps out of her skin when she sees the Sheriff. Santana's fingers rest unmoving on the keys while she eavesdrops.

"Coke, please. Leave a little room in the cup so I can add in my protein powder."

"T-to g-g-go?"

Sheriff Sylvester eyes Tina like she's a confession served up on a silver platter. A too nice smile passes over the woman's lips, and it sends a shudder up Santana's spine.

"That'll be fine."

Tina all but bolts over to the soda machine and tries to hide behind it. When she comes back, she has a large plastic cup with the Crashdown logo on it and a straw.

"A-Anything else I can tell you today, S-Sheriff?" She blanches and corrects herself. "Get you today, S-Sheriff?"

"Actually, I need your insurance information for our little fender bender." She pauses. "Are you all right?"

"T-t-totally. Happy as a cl-clam."

The girl's voice has gone up a full octave, and she's practically shaking with fright. Santana has never physically wanted to bang her head against the table until now. They are so royally screwed. The secret of their species might as well be lit up in neon lights.

The Sheriff has been quiet for too long, and Santana chances a look. The woman is leaning far over the counter, and she speaks so quietly Santana almost can't hear.

"I'm here to protect you from _anything_, Tina. Do you understand?"

Kurt comes flying out from the backroom all smiles and urgency to drag Tina away to do a "can inventory," whatever that means. It gets Tina away from the Sheriff, but as she leaves, she eyes Santana steadily.

Yeah, they are totally fucked.

o

Santana leaves the Crashdown shortly after the Sheriff and walks to Blaine's house. His first floor bedroom window is open, so she climbs inside with a whispered greeting so his parents don't hear. She's just in time to see Blaine's laptop lid slam shut, and he flashes her a furious look over his shoulder.

"Relax. I've caught you watching porn so many times it doesn't even phase me anymore."

"I wasn't watching porn," he protests.

"Uh huh. Stand up right now."

He glares at her. She hops onto his bed and stretches out, and he joins her a minute later. With their heads resting on the pillows, they can just see the starry night sky out the top of the long, narrow window.

"So if not porn, what are you doing that you don't want me to see? Or do you have secret friends I don't know about who also climb in through your window?"

He doesn't take the bait. Instead, he puts on his contemplative face.

"What if there is someone out there somewhere waiting for us to come home? Another mom and dad? Do you wonder about it?"

She rolls onto her side and props herself up on her elbow. "Every day. What's this about?"

"We're always being so cautious. We're always watching our backs and never getting involved. We're not moving forward. We're … stuck. I don't want to be stuck anymore."

"So this is about Kurt. I wish I had someone I felt that way about, but we can't expose ourselves that way. Trust me, Blaine, I learned that the hard way."

Frustration laces his voice when he answers. "Are we supposed to be alone forever, Santana? I love you, but I think we'd both be incredibly uncomfortable forcing our brother-sister bond into something else."

"Ew. Don't even talk about that."

"If we can't be with anyone else, and we can't be with each other, then we either have to be alone forever or let ourselves completely trust someone. I finally found someone we can trust, and –"

"You don't know that. You just …. God, it's like talking to a brick wall."

She jumps off the bed and paces around his room. He collapses back onto his pillow and speaks to the ceiling.

"So do you want to be the pot or the kettle? I'm preferable to the kettle myself, but I'll defer to you."

She's quiet for a long time while she makes up her mind. "I'm going to pay Tina a visit."

"What kind?" he asks warily.

"The usual. Just a short visit."

"Santana, you can't go around walking into people's dreams."

She shrugs and makes for the window. "Of course I can. It's one of my powers, and since it's one you're pathetically inept at, there's nothing you can do to stop me. Just like I couldn't stop you from healing Kurt and fucking up our lives."

The hurt that flashes across his face puts a knot in her stomach.

"Blaine, I –"

"You know what, just …. Just go. I realize you're stuck with me because we're the only two of our species that we know of, but that doesn't give you the right to be mean. You don't get to treat me like I'm other people."

"Blaine."

"I said go!"

He's loud enough that someone else in the house will have heard him, so she slips out the window and lands lightly in the flower bed before his parents can catch her in his room. It's not that they would be upset Blaine has a girl in his room. It would give them false hope that his 'phase' is coming to an end, and she can't put him through that.

As vicious as her words can be, she truly and deeply loves Blaine.

o

Santana can't sleep. She's progressed from planning her apology to full out worrying that Blaine won't forgive her this time, which she knows is ridiculous because he always does, but even tenderhearted people like Blaine must have their limits.

When she's tossed and turned enough to muss up all her sheets and make the bed downright uncomfortable, she makes her decision. If she's not getting any sleep tonight, she might as well be productive. She digs through her meager bookshelf and pulls out last year's yearbook. She flips through the black and white pages until she finds Tina's photo.

She touches the picture with her forefinger. A ripple passes through her body, and a flash of Tina sleeping peacefully in her bed enters her mind, and then she's falling sideways onto her pillow and into Tina's dream.

The dream world is muted to Santana. These aren't her thoughts, so she can't interpret them very well. Everything feels far away, but she can see what is happening. She's sitting on a bar stool at the Crashdown. A dream version of herself is sitting at a four top table with Blaine and Kurt. They're laughing at something. Tina stands several paces back, twisting her fingers together and shifting her weight around awkwardly.

"K-Kurt?"

Kurt is making exaggerated heart eyes at Blaine, and when he looks away to gaze up at Tina, he's clearly annoyed. He sighs deeply, motions to the final empty chair at the table, and goes back to mooning over Blaine. When Tina tries to sit down, the chair disappears and she falls to the floor. The dream versions of Kurt, Blaine, and Santana break into peals of laughter.

"That's one of our abilities," dream-Santana says cruelly. "We steal your friends."

The real Santana, the one intruding on the dream, stares in disbelief. She's offended, horribly so, although she can't pinpoint why exactly. Her scoff draws Tina's attention as she climbs to her feet, and the other girls starts visibly.

"What are you doing here?"

"I thought we should talk. Since we can't do it properly when you're awake, I thought I'd visit you in your dreams. I'm not really part of this. I just thought I'd take a look around. This is … not what I expected."

"Visit me in my dream?" Tina parrots.

"Where are the slimy green aliens blowing up the planet for their own nefarious ends?"

Tina shakes her head, as if she doesn't understand the question at all. Santana's eyes dart over Tina's shoulder to the table where the dream versions of Kurt, Blaine, and Santana have frozen in mid-laugh. It hits her like a slap to the face.

"You're not afraid of us at all."

"I …." Tina fidgets uncomfortably under Santana's piercing gaze. "I'm shy, and I'm … not that interesting. It's hard for me to make friends. Kurt is my best friend, and I don't want to lose him."

Santana slumps back against the corner with a chagrined look. "You took the words out of my mouth. About Blaine, not Kurt. Look, we're not trying to steal Kurt away or anything. Blaine isn't even supposed to be hanging around him. If it were up to me, you'd have him all to yourself, and I'd have Blaine all to myself, but I really don't think that's going to happen."

Tina takes a tentative step forward and hops up onto the bar stool next to Santana. They rotate so they're facing each other with the table of frozen dream-people in their periphery.

"Neither do I," Tina says.

"Look, you and I, we're like the unwilling in-laws. It doesn't matter what we think, Romeo and Romeo are going to pine and angst until they just say 'screw it' and get their gay on in the eraser room. I'm not proposing that we're friends or anything, but I'm definitely not your enemy."

The other girl considers her for a long minute.

"I swear I'm not!" Santana says. "It's difficult for you to make friends? Well, me too."

"Maybe if you weren't so defensive –"

"Maybe if you didn't pretend to have a stutter," Santana fires back. "Yeah, I picked up on that, Goth Barbie, so don't sit here and treat me like I'm less than you because you're just as defensive as I am. It's cute and less obvious on you, but it's there and we both know it."

They sit in tense silence for several minutes not looking directly at one another. Tina speaks first.

"So … not enemies?"

Santana shrugs and rolls her eyes to the ceiling. She lets the tiniest of grins appear in the corner of her mouth, and sees from her side vision that Tina is smiling.

"Sure. Whatever."

* * *

**THE SUBSTITUTE **

Kurt loves history class. He doesn't have any particular affinity for the subject, although he likes it well enough, but history is one of only two classes he has with Blaine. They didn't speak at the beginning of the year, so they don't have seats next to each other, but Blaine is two rows over and one back. Kurt can see him from the corner of his eye whenever he looks at the right side of the chalkboard, and as a result, his notes are especially sparse whenever the teacher uses that side of the board.

He's still pulling out his books and sneaking lingering glances at Blaine when their teacher walks in, so he doesn't understand the rush of confusion over Blaine's face. When he turns towards the front of the room, he immediately understands two things.

One, they have a substitute teacher.

Two, she is a crazy person.

She's a willowy woman with long, straight blonde hair and a pretty, striking face not often found outside the pages of _Vogue_. If only she didn't have on a red bandana and blue coveralls rolled up to her elbows, she would be glamorous.

"Good morning, class," she says in an affected, nasally voice. "My name is Holly Holliday. I'm subbing until Mrs. Weiss is back from her unexpected and scandalous elopement that makes me think she's in a family way and her folks want to keep it hush-hush. I think that because I'm from 1943 and today we're talking about Rosie the Riveter, but let's punch our timecards first."

Kurt's eyes dart side-to-side to see if any of his classmates are as bewildered and unsettled as he is. Unfortunately, he sits next to Brett, and the amount of weed he smokes daily has him somewhere up in the stratosphere.

"Blaine Anderson …"

Even hearing his name and Blaine's quiet 'here' sends Kurt's pulse racing. He almost misses answering when his name is called because he's still stealing looks in Blaine's direction.

But Kurt doesn't miss when Ms. Holliday spends overly long waiting for a reply that doesn't come when she calls Santana's name. Kurt turns around, searching for Santana, but she's not in her usual seat beside Blaine. It's not like her to miss, although it's been known to happen.

"Does anyone know where Santana is?" Ms. Holliday asks. Her black leather boots thump against the tile as she walks down the row and stops beside Blaine's desk. "Blaine Anderson, do you know where Santana Lopez is?"

Blaine's shoulders move infinitesimally. "Santana's not really into history."

Ms. Holliday accepts the answer with a laugh, but it strikes Kurt as all wrong. He hardly hears the lesson at all, despite the substitute's insane outfit drawing everyone else in, and he doesn't sneak another look at Blaine. He's too busy worrying about what, exactly, Ms. Holliday finds so interesting about Santana or why she thought Blaine might know where she is.

After class, Kurt hurries through the halls to catch up with Blaine who has to rush back to his locker so he can get to gym on the other side of the school next. He's at the end of the corridor and can see Blaine when suddenly he's flying sideways into a bank of lockers. His shoulder blades knock painfully into the metal, and a hanging lock digs into his spine.

"That's what you get for creeping on straight guys, homo," Dave Karofsky yells as he walks away.

Shock and fear keep Kurt pressed against the lockers despite the pain. He's hugging his books to his chest and staring at Karofsky's retreating back with wide eyes. He flinches away when someone else touches him, but it's just Blaine. He looks as pained as Kurt feels.

"I'm fine," he says, shrugging off the lingering pain and fear. "So, what was that all about with Ms. Holliday asking about Santana?"

Blaine's brows draw together, and Kurt can see the concern and anger building in his eyes. He notices then that Blaine's hand is on his arm, and he shrugs it off gently.

"You were right when you said it's not safe for us to be together … in more ways than one."

"This is my fault." Blaine leans in closer, his whisper a hiss of self-condemnation. "Karofsky said …. He said straight guys, Kurt. If I was out –"

"You'd be getting thrown into lockers too." He wants nothing more than to hug Blaine, to rub his back and press kisses into his hair and make this better, but he can't and he couldn't even if Blaine was out. "I'm not saying you should stay in the closet or that you should come out. I'm all for being who you are in your own time. I'm just saying that you coming out, it's not going to solve any of my problems."

"But I …."

He hangs his head, and suddenly it's clear to Kurt that watching the bullying has affected Blaine more than if he had been bullied himself. In the same way, his dad getting homophobic phone calls about him had hurt Kurt less than they'd hurt his dad.

"Blaine, I've never had a boyfriend before, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I think part of being in a gay relationship has to be that you respect how out the other person is and not pressuring them into being more public than they're comfortable with."

Blaine stares at Kurt in open amazement, and it makes him fidget uncomfortably. He drops his chin to hide his blush.

"Not that we're b –," he mumbles.

"You're amazing," Blaine breathes.

Kurt eyes snap up to meet his. Blaine is drawn in and caught up and utterly, completely, and head over heels in love with Kurt. And he wants the world to know it.

If only the world wouldn't punish them for it. For being gay, awaits bullying. For being an alien, awaits a far worse fate. And for being brought back to life by an alien, awaits nothing better.

Seeing Kurt slammed into a locker puts an untamable fire in his gut. Thinking of Kurt at the hands of heartless scientists quenches the fire, and it turns to all-consuming fear. So the world can't know how much Blaine Anderson loves Kurt Hummel.

o

"So, wait. Is she a cosplayer or something?" Tina asks.

Kurt growls in frustration. "Not the point, Tina! She was asking about Santana, and the way she was looking at Blaine …. It's like she knew that they're best friends, and how could she possibly know that? And what substitute cares about attendance anyway? Something's not right."

Tina frowns around her French fry slathered in cheese sauce – Kurt really has to do something about her eating habits – and considers.

"Do you think she's a spy or something? Or maybe an alien hunter like Sheriff Sylvester's parents? Stuff like that happens, you know."

Kurt peers over his shoulder where he knows Blaine is having lunch with Artie. Much to his surprise, Blaine and Santana do have other friends just like he and Tina do, and some of those friends overlap the circles of their separate social life Venn diagrams. But like Tina and him, they prefer to stick together and keep to themselves.

"I think whoever tested my uniform will find a bullet hole and blood on it, but no bullet in me or the Crashdown," Kurt answers. "Someone in the government has to know that there really was a crash in 1947, and it's not going to be difficult for whoever knows that to put the pieces together."

Tina swallows thickly. "And the Sheriff already suspects them."

Kurt nods solemnly. Tina puts down her French fry, suddenly not hungry.

"So what do we do?" she asks quietly.

"While Ms. Holliday is watching Blaine and Santana, we watch Ms. Holliday."

Kurt doesn't have to wait long to get the proof he needs that Ms. Holliday is not what she pretends to be. He's running late to English because he's just come from gym, and it's better if he waits to shower until the other guys are done. When he rounds the corner, he careens directly into Ms. Holliday. She shouts in surprise and drops an armload of notebooks and files. Kurt assumes they're lesson plans.

"I am so sorry!" he says earnestly. As much as he intends to watch her, he doesn't want to injure her in the process. "Are you all right? Here, let me help."

Kurt crouches down to help her gather up the mess of papers strewn across the hallway.

"I've endured far worse than a bump in the hallway," Ms. Holliday says lightly. "Being a substitute is hard. I once got sucker punched by a girl who hated geometry. And some kids put a snake in my car."

"Oh, my. How ..." Kurt's eyes land on a stack of paperclipped files poking out of a cream-colored folder. On the top right corner, a printed label bears Santana's name and address. "… terrible. That is just … unbelievable."

Ms. Holliday quickly snatches away the file. "Thank you for your help, Kurt. It's probably time for you to get to class … or sneak off behind the bleachers to meet your hot boyfriend."

She winks at him before she walks away with her heels clicking down the empty corridor. Kurt stands stock still with his brain working so fast he can't process much of what he's thinking. There's only a flashing red light that screams **DANGER, DANGER!**

Kurt pulls out his phone while he ducks into the nearest alcove, which happens to be outside the library and texts Tina.

_(14:22)_

_ DEFCON 5!_

_ (14:22)_

_ You know that means we're in a state of peace, right? DEFCON 1 is the bad one._

_ (14:22)_

_Really? You're going know-it-all on me now?_

_ (14:23)_

_Why are we at DEFCON 1? (I'm assuming that's what you meant)._

_ (14:23)_

_I watched. And I found something._

_(14:25)_

_Oh. Meet me after class. We'll strategize._

It takes everything Kurt has to walk into class and sit for an hour while he knows Ms. Holliday could be in her office – if substitutes have offices – plotting against Blaine and Santana. He hardly hears anything the teacher says. At last, the bell rings, and he bolts from the room to meet Tina by their lockers. He whispers the whole story rapid-fire.

"We have to warn Santana," Tina concludes. "Did you memorize her address?"

"Yeah. I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget."

"You work at the Crashdown tonight. Give it to me. I'll go talk to her."

He lifts his brow. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. Santana and I understand each other. Sort of."

Kurt can't conceive of _that_ friendship. Tina is so sensitive and shy, Santana is brash and pushy. He hands over the slip of paper anyway, because he's not going to stand in the way of their friendship, however unexpected it is.

o

Tina is still flustered when she pulls up to the address Kurt wrote down. She had to fight her parents for use of the car on a night when she didn't have to work, and then she'd almost hit a dog running across the road. She's less than pleased to find herself in a trailer park. She thinks Kurt must have been mistaken, or else her portable GPS is angry about how often she ignores its directions and makes it recalculate, because she simply cannot see Santana living here.

There are trailer parks, and then there are _trailer parks_. This one is unfortunately the latter. The aluminum siding is stained and falling off the frames, screen windows are torn or hanging loosely, cars edged with rust are parked along the street. Even the street is dusty and broken. Tina can't see Santana living here. She wears nice clothes, perfect makeup and hairstyles right out of _Seventeen_, and eats at the Crashdown almost daily. Unless she has a job that Tina doesn't know about or Blaine pays for their meals. Maybe that's it. His family is wealthy. He must have a nice chunk of allowance.

Tina approaches the trailer with the right brass numbers drilled into the side and knocks on the screen door. She takes a step down on the flimsy aluminum stairs to wait. A woman in a purple muumuu with a cigarette trailing smoke shuffles to the door. She leans against the jamb and glowers at Tina.

"I-I'm looking for S-Santana Lopez. M-Maybe I made a m-mistake?"

The woman flashes Tina a droll look and shouts over her shoulder. "Hey, Garbage Face!"

Tina flinches at the cruel name. She's not sure if she should come inside or wait, but the door's been left open for her. She comes inside hesitantly. It's the same as the outside: clutter everywhere, cheap wood paneling, a sheet stapled over the windows instead of curtains. The woman sinks back down into her recliner and goes back to watching _Antique Roadshow_.

Santana appears at the junction of living room and hallway a second later. She's wearing a wary look, but all Tina can process is how out of place she looks, so pretty and sophisticated, in a room like this one. She looks like she's just daring the world to call her trailer trash.

"Let's talk outside," she says softly.

Tina lets her squeeze past and follows her outside to the dusty street. She quickly shares everything Kurt told her. It gets under Santana's skin as quickly as they'd both known it would.

"It's my record? You're sure it was my record? And she's looking for me?"

Tina nods. "We thought you should know."

"Yeah, thanks."

Santana lets herself get distracted for a long moment as they walk slowly back towards Tina's car, but she snaps out of it.

"Listen. If Helen said anything to you …."

"No, no. It's fine. Sorry to just show up here."

Santana shrugs and glances around at the rundown trailer park.

"It's where I live."

They're back at Tina's borrowed car, and she knows she has to get it home to her parents soon because she promised she wouldn't be long.

"Do you want to have a sleepover this weekend?" Tina asks in a rush.

It catches Santana off guard, and she sputters for a minute before recovering and assuming her usual lofty expression.

"I guess so. Text me when your parents go to bed, and I'll sneak into your room."

Tina shifts her weight around nervously. "Umm, I didn't mean _that_ kind of sleepover. I sort of meant one where you come to dinner with my family, we do makeovers, watch rom-coms, and gossip."

"And yet look where your mind goes. I meant that your white collar parents aren't going to be okay with me being your friend. Or whatever," she adds hastily, as if friend is a taboo word.

"My parents are really cool," Tina answers. "Just think about it, okay?"

Later that night, Tina gets a text message from Santana.

_(23:09)_

_Fine. But only because Blaine is crap at makeovers._

Tina smiles to herself. Maybe they aren't friends yet, but they are getting closer.

* * *

**THE ERASER ROOM**

Blaine spends most of Friday morning trying to calm Santana down. She rants the whole ride to school about Ms. Holliday and how it shouldn't be a crime to have a dentist appointment one day each semester. She's on the verge of doing something stupid, and Blaine has to pull her back.

"She's investigating me, Blaine!"

The drive to school has been a rush of air through the convertible, pop music on the radio, and Santana screaming over everything.

"I know, but –"

"'Shit!' is the correct response. We already have the Sheriff nosing around asking about you. We don't need a substitute teacher – or whoever she is – checking up on me. God, we are so totally fucked."

"We'll figure this out together, Santana. Don't confront Ms. Holliday, okay? We need to think about this and make sure of our next move before we do something that puts us in even more danger."

She agrees with a stiff nod, and Blaine wonders if it's the kind of promise she intends to ignore, like the one he made about staying away from Kurt. She sits back hard against the passenger seat as they pull into the parking lot and tugs out the band holding her hair back.

"Are you still going to Tina's?"

Santana helps him put the soft top up so the red leather seats don't fade in the blinding sun. She stares at him over the car for a moment, then nods once.

"Auntie Tana is taking it upon herself to show Mrs. Lovett how to have a good time."

"Santana …."

She refuses to elaborate or listen to his pleas to not antagonize Tina anymore. He sighs and goes in search of Kurt and Tina. They have to talk about how to deal with Santana when these situations come up.

Blaine finds Kurt and Tina by the boy's locker. They're lamenting the desert climate keeping them from wearing fabulous sweaters they've seen in fashion magazines. Kurt has tried to wear them before, but by the end of the day, he has to be wrung out.

A bright smile flashes over Kurt's face when he sees Blaine, but a photograph on the inside of the locker distracts Blaine. It's of him and Kurt, and he remembers the day: the winter choral recital in eighth grade. Although, to his recollection, there should be several other people in the picture, but they've been covered up by other decoration.

Kurt holds out a paper cup of coffee. "I missed you this morning."

Blaine scratches the back of his neck and tries not to smile too widely. "Yeah. I got a little distracted by Santana."

He sighs deeply, because he has to say this to Kurt and Tina even if it will ruin the light atmosphere of the morning.

"The thing is, you can't just show up at Santana's and get her riled up like that. She's not big on considering our options."

They exchange guilty looks.

"I know," Kurt says. "I just thought if there's someone snooping around, she should know."

"Thank you, Kurt, for looking out for us. But we have to go on with our lives as they were before. We have to be careful. All of us now."

Tina nods sincerely, and he feels a rush of affection for the girl who is so obviously trying to put aside her shy nature and become friends with them. She's even attempted to bond with Santana, and that's something few people are brave enough to try.

Blaine thinks that's the end of suspecting Ms. Holliday, but what he sees during passing periods in the afternoon changes his mind. As he's walking by Principal Figgins' office, he sees through the glass walls Ms. Holliday talking to Sheriff Sylvester. A spike of worry strikes through his heart, and without a second thought, he sends Kurt a text message.

_ (12:47)_

_ Meet me in the eraser room._

o

"The eraser room? Do you know what the eraser room means, Kurt?"

Kurt glances down at his best friend as they hurry through the halls with arms linked and bags swinging. If Kurt is going to the eraser room, which effectively means skipping next hour, he wants to drop off his unnecessary, heavy books.

"Of course I do." He huffs. He doesn't respond for several seconds. "What does it mean?"

"That's where Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman conceived their secret love child. It's where Jacob Ben Israel … _appreciated_ Rachel Berry's panties."

"Okay, Tina. Stop. You're making this into something way bigger than it is."

Tina leans against the bank of lockers with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyebrows arched. He pointedly ignores her while he shoves his books inside.

"All I'm saying is, Blaine touches you and you have a vision. What happens if he kisses you?"

A rush of air fills Kurt's lungs, and he turns to his friend with elation and hope on his face. He asks breathlessly, "Do you really think he will?"

"What else are you going to do in the eraser room?"

o

Kurt slips inside the eraser room just after the tardy bell rings. He's a quivering lump of nerves and not at all worried about skipping geometry because Tina will cover for him. He's more focused on the boy waiting for him. Blaine examines a wall full of plastic totes on bookshelves where dirty black erasers have been thrown into bins. Now that the classrooms have whiteboards, there's no need for these supplies or this room, and yet here they are.

"You came."

Blaine sounds a little surprised. He beckons Kurt over to him, and he thinks this is the big moment when Blaine takes his hand. He feels shocks and echoes of their connection racing through his veins, but instead of pulling him in for a kiss, the other boy leads him between two freestanding metal shelving units to the back of the small room where a vent sits low to the ground.

"I saw Ms. Holliday talking to Sheriff Sylvester. If you and Tina are right, and she's not who she claims to be, we need to know about it. Figgins gives the janitor's closet to substitutes as an office. It's on the back side of this wall."

Blaine lowers himself to the ground, and Kurt cringes at subjecting his designer jeans to a floor littered with chalk dust that probably hasn't been swept up since the whiteboards were installed three years ago. He sucks it up and sits, though, because it means being closer to Blaine and his jeans will wash.

Their shoulders brush and send tingles through Kurt. He wants so badly for Blaine to kiss him or to find the courage to kiss Blaine. But they made their agreement not to, and Kurt can't stand the thought of being rejected by Blaine, so he doesn't.

There's nothing else to do while they wait for Ms. Holliday to return to her office, so they talk about nothing and everything. They decide to take turns asking questions so they can get to know each other better.

"Why did you quit glee club?"

"New Directions used to be like a family. It was a haven for anyone who didn't belong. But then we lost Regionals, Mr. Schue got fired, and Ms Corcoran started Vocal Adrenaline, and there's nothing familial or accepting about it now. I didn't join glee to be criticized every day and shoved to the back. The final straw, though, was when Artie got kicked out. If you're not a lead vocalist, you're a background dancer, so Artie …."

Blaine sucks in a breath. "That's really horrible. Ms. Corcoran was allowed to get away with that?"

Kurt nods sadly. "She has more national championships than any other show choir director in the country, and Figgins wanted the prize money. So, I quit and started working at the Crashdown more. Honestly, it's better this way. It helps my dad out, and I'll have money saved up for when I go to New York."

"I can see you in New York. Please tell me you have big Broadway dreams?"

Kurt preens. "As a matter of fact, I do. But that's two questions, so now it's my turn."

"By all means."

Kurt cringes playfully before he asks his question. He wants to know, but doesn't want to offend. He hopes a dose of cuteness might soften what could be a blow.

"Before you took human form, were you three feet tall, green, and slimy?"

"No, we've always looked like this. Except for the tentacles." Kurt blanches, and Blaine bumps his shoulder while laughing lightly. "Kidding. God, you're an easy mark."

"Shut up," Kurt grumbles around a self-deprecating smile.

The next several questions are innocuous enough, the kind of trivial details like favorite color that psychiatrists might find insightful, but new friends simply find interesting. Then the topic of bullying comes up, and the thoughts Kurt has never shared with anyone but his journal come pouring out, baring his soul to Blaine.

"I'm proud of who I am, and I refuse to change. But the way they look at me …. Sometimes I just wish I could be invisible."

Blaine blinks at him sorrowfully, and Kurt knows that what comes next will bare Blaine's soul to him and the tragic beauty beneath that calm, confident façade is about to make an appearance again. He holds his breath while he waits for the truth.

"Sometimes I wish I didn't have to be so invisible."

Kurt can see it, Blaine if he didn't have to blend in. He doesn't know if Blaine can sing or act, but his brain is wired to think of center stage as the epitome of popularity. He can see Blaine as the great romantic lead, his tenor hitting perfect notes while the audience swoons and claps and jumps to their feet for him at curtain call.

They sit in silence for several minutes gazing into each other's eyes, living each other's secret dream in their heads.

The click of heels on tile draws their attention to the vent, and they shuffle around to peer through the grating. It's not a perfect view, being low to the ground, but they can make out a desk wedged into the small closet and a pair of knee high boots – designer knockoffs, Kurt notes – standing in front of it. Ms. Holliday isn't alone, although they can't see more of her companion than black dress pants.

"I'm not getting anywhere with these kids. I'm going to try the foster mother. You keep an eye on the Sheriff. I don't want her interfering with this investigation anymore."

Ms. Holliday sounds nothing like the free-spirited substitute who has been around all week. Her voice is cold, serious. A deep male voice replies.

"I can do that, Agent."

Kurt and Blaine wheel away from the vent and press their backs against the wall. The grating stands between them like a canyon, and they make eye contact across it. Their fear matches. They're dealing with something far, far worse than alien hunters. The danger has escalated far beyond small town authorities and fringe UFOlogists. Three little letters could mean nightmares coming to life.

FBI.

* * *

**GIRL'S NIGHT**

Santana makes a point of not waiting by Tina's locker after school. She doesn't want to look too eager for their sleepover, so she takes her time packing up her books after economics class and arrives at her locker to find Tina leaning against the metal bank and texting. The other girl looks up when she feels she's being watched and smiles brightly.

"Hey! Are you excited for tonight?"

It startles Santana because the only person who has ever been happy to see her is Blaine. She doesn't know how to react, so she ducks her head and spins the combination on her locker. From the corner of her eye, she sees Tina's smile deflate.

"Yeah, of course," she says hastily. "It's just been a really shitty day, you know?"

Tina nods quickly. "Kurt told me about Ms. Holliday."

They're okay after that. Santana can't pinpoint why she's so concerned about Tina's feelings. She doesn't care about anyone's feelings. (Except Blaine's, but he's family so that's different). She shudders to think she's actually making a friend. They can't afford attachments like friendships, and that's exactly why she thinks Blaine should stay away from Kurt.

Usually, Kurt drives Tina home or to work after school. She stops short when she sees Kurt standing beside a faded yellow pickup manufactured in the early 1990's. Her lips twitch into a delighted grin, and Kurt is immediately defensive.

"Don't," he snaps. "My dad promised to buy me a car if I don't get into an accident for six months and if I don't miss a day of work. Another month, and he gets his clunker truck back during the day."

"I didn't say a word."

They throw their book bags and Santana's overnight bag into the bed and climb into the cab. Santana sticks her arm out the window to wave good-bye to Blaine, who is putting the top down on his Corvette. They then have to endure a grueling two-minute eye-fuck of the ages. Well, maybe eye-fuck is the wrong word. That would require Blaine to stop looking like a kicked puppy and Kurt to stop looking like a chibi with heart eyes.

Tina lives in a decent part of Roswell, not quite the high end housing edition that Blaine lives in, but a good blue collar neighborhood. The Cohen-Chang house sits on a neat plot of grass a little brown because there are no sprinklers – "My parents don't believe in wasting natural resources." – with bright green shutters and potted, flowering cacti on the porch. The inside is an eclectic mix of Americana and Native American. Over dinner, Santana finds out why.

Mr. Cohen-Chang – who seriously changed his name to match his wife's when she refused to give in to "the patriarchal tradition that demeans women by harkening back to days when we were property" – is what he calls an ABC – American-born Chinese – who studies Navajo and Apache art. Mrs. Cohen-Chang is a pretty, athletic woman who wears her long hair in a ponytail and works for the National Park Service. They have TexMex for dinner, and no one asks Santana if it's "authentic." There's no sign of chopsticks or white rice anywhere in the house. They don't flinch when Santana says she lives in West Roswell Heights.

She hates them because there's nothing to hate about them.

At last, they're allowed to retreat to Tina's room. To Santana's surprise, it's not a Goth haven. There is plenty of black and a little bit of lace, but it mostly looks like a normal bedroom of a bookish high school girl who loves music and musicals. The cluttered desk holds a collection of notebooks and school projects, two iPods and sheet music lay on top of the bureau, pictures of Tina and Kurt are tacked up around the mirror, and framed posters of Sondheim musicals adorn the walls.

"So what do you want to do first? Kurt and I usually start with painting our nails –"

"Of course you do."

"– but we could watch a movie or take one of the quizzes in _Cosmo_. Or we can do both."

Santana can't help but laugh. "You are such a _girl_."

Tina's brow furrows, like she's not sure whether that's a compliment or not. Santana gets her laughter under control and mentally adjusts her image of Tina. The other girl grabs the nail polish from her plastic makeup cubby shoved under the bed, and Santana grabs the _Cosmos_ from the desk. She can't wait to see if Tina blushes at the more salacious questions, but she's sadly deprived of rosy cheeks.

"Definitely D, bondage."

Tina glances up from the base coat she's applying to her toes and meets Santana's eyes. She's stretched out on her stomach across Tina's bed in a constant state of shock and amusement at the answers to the sex quiz this shy, reluctant girl is giving.

"It's always the quiet ones," Santana laughs.

"Your turn."

Santana considers the answers again. She considers picking the more adventurous answer too, but decides to give Tina a little shock of her own. "C."

"No way!" Tina cries. She swipes the magazine and reads the answers again. "I wouldn't have guessed that's your style at all, but 'blindfolds and body worship', that's sweet."

"There's a lot of things about me you wouldn't guess. By the way, you should give the black nail polish a rest. I know it's your thing, but even vampires need to change it up every once in a while."

"What do you suggest?"

Santana pushes herself up into a sitting position and takes the little bottle of black nail polish. She touches the glass with the tip of her forefinger and turns the liquid deep plum. Tina makes the most adorable 'ooh.' It brings Santana up short, because … adorable? Since when does Santana Lopez find anything adorable?

She leaves the magazine lying open, but ignores the next question for now. It's already obvious that Tina is much more adventurous and open about sex than Santana, and for good reason, but Santana's not ready to discuss that with anyone. Even Blaine doesn't know about what Puck told her. She takes the base coat and starts on her own toenails.

"So are all your answers hypothetical?"

Tina rolls her eyes self-deprecatingly. "Yes. I sort of dated Artie last year, but he tried to get me to change, and I can't deal with that. I went a little crazy, actually. I shouted at him in the hallway about how I'm a strong, powerful woman and he had to deal with that."

Santana laughs loudly. "I would have paid to see that. What did he say?"

"Nothing. I scared him too badly."

They laugh over all the boys they'd frightened in the past just by being strong, independent women. Admittedly, Santana had scared far more boys than Tina, but it's fun to share stories of how even Kurt and Blaine have been put in their places on occasion.

"You know, you're more fun than I'd thought you'd be. Maybe you won't freak out when I tell you what I have planned for the rest of the night."

Tina shifts around curiously while Santana fishes through her overnight bag and pulls out two pieces of plastic. She hands one to Tina and watches the girl's eyes go wide.

"Is this – Where did – Let me see yours."

Santana hands over her fake ID. Tina compares the work, which isn't flawless but is still pretty good by small town standards. The IDs would never work in Santa Fe, but the bouncers in Roswell either don't know forgeries or don't care.

"You don't grow up in West Roswell Heights without knowing people," Santana explains. "So, are you in? There's a table at 47 with our names on it."

Tina hesitates, and her eyes stray to door, doubtless considering the super cool parents still in the living room. She turns back to Santana with a determined look.

"My parents go to bed around eleven. We should leave the TV on a movie channel so they think we're being quiet for a good reason."

"Oh. _Oh!_ I cannot believe what I'm hearing. You have so snuck out before."

Tina shrugs. "Not for anything as scandalous as sneaking into a bar, but … yeah, I have, actually."

o

Tina has been by 47 a lot, but she's never so much as looked past the painted sign in the large display windows. She's always accepted that she'll have to wait until she's twenty-one to see the inside. It's pretty much what she expects from a bar in Roswell: a little dingy, smoky, noisy, but not exactly loud. There are two pool tables and a dart board, and it's karaoke night so the stage is empty for now while the next act makes their way through the tables.

Santana orders two Cokes at the bar and makes her way over to an empty table near one of the pool tables. She's watching the college guys – they look like stereotypical frat boys – harass each other while they play. Tina's eyes dart between Santana and the guys. This night isn't going the way she expected, but it's plain Santana has something in mind.

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking Friday night is a great night to work."

"Work …?"

"How do you think I afford these clothes and Brazilian blowouts? I hustle pool. And shoplift, but mostly I hustle pool."

"So that's why we have Cokes at a bar instead of glamorous fruity drinks at a nightclub."

"I knew you'd catch on quickly."

Tina watches as Santana casually begins glancing at the guys more often, and when they notice the beautiful girl paying attention to them, she leans over and whispers to Tina that men are such easy marks, but while casting a flirty glance at the guys to make them think she's saying something else. It's not long before the girls are hanging around the pool table. Tina listens while a talkative guy named Mark tells her how awesome he is at everything, and Santana casually requests a lesson.

Tina is no expert, but she's good at math. Knowledge of basic angles tells her several of Santana's shots should have gone in the pocket, but the balls always miss. Her lips part in surprise when she realizes Santana is using her powers to make herself appear like a bad player. Finally, she lets two shots in a row land.

"So … now that I know how to play, what do you say we put something on the table worth playing for?"

"Beginner's luck won't hold, sweetheart. We don't want to take all your money."

Santana shrugs. "Do I look like I have to worry about money?"

They bite. Santana is an amazing pool shark. She throws the first and second game, but by the third game she's starting to win small amounts of money. She's flirting with the guys just enough that they don't notice, and by the time she calls it quits after a few more games, she's up $200.

"Don't go!" one of the guys pleads.

Santana grins indulgently. "I'd play all night, but I came here for a girl's night out, and my friend doesn't play pool."

Tina doesn't know what's gotten into her, but she's inspired by Santana's con. She's never going to see these guys again, and the idea of slipping into a character after so long without performing appeals to her. She hops off her bar stool and passes Santana a meaningful look.

"I play darts."

Santana lifts an eyebrow, but nods. If Tina wants to play with her own money, Santana isn't going to stop her. She's not as good at the con as Santana, but she's not trying to hustle them in the same way. Their conversation about scaring boys has given her an idea. She's pretty sure these guys will keep playing until they can beat a girl at darts, and Tina's aim is difficult to beat.

She watches Santana go from skeptical to impressed to mirthful as the rounds progress. The guys get agitated when the cute, Goth girl hands them their asses time after time. The bets stay small until Tina adjusts her aim and throws a game. Santana nods approvingly as Tina cleans up over the next three rounds and bows out after throwing the last game. The guys notice this time that they've lost badly. They're not so interested in the girls anymore, and they're allowed to retreat to their table.

"Okay … What?" Santana asks. "The thing about yelling at Artie, I get. Everyone can stand up for themselves if they're pushed far enough, but … hustling?"

Tina takes a long drink of her Coke. "Let me tell you the story of how I got out of gym class …."

Santana is utterly delighted with the tale of Figgins pissing himself because he thinks Tina is a vampire.

"Holy shit, Tina! Why do you hide the badass side of yourself?"

She smiles easily. "For the same reason you hide this side of yourself."

That brings Santana up short. She realizes that she has been laughing and smiling way more than normal. She's actually having fun. Even after the bombshell that Ms. Holliday is FBI, and knowing they're completely screwed, _she's having fun_. With Tina Cohen-Chang, of all people. She settles back into a more somber mood, trying to remind herself of cops and feds on their trail, but Tina won't let her.

"We've had your kind of fun. Now it's time for my kind of fun."

She gestures at the karaoke stage. A nervous-looking woman sings a passable version of _Love is a Battlefield _to the delight of her friends down front.

"Can you sing?" Tina asks.

Santana scoffs. "I can sing. Can you sing? Or have you forgotten after playing wallflower in too many choirs?"

Tina leans forward into Santana's space and says playfully, "Just for that, I challenge you to a duel, show choir style. A duet. May the best woman win."

"Bring it, Cohen-Chang. You've never had a duet partner like me before. You won't know what's hit you when I step up to that microphone."

They spend too much time debating which song they should sing. Tina wants something that will compliment her lyrical voice, but Santana keeps suggesting songs with sultry vocals. At last, they agree on Florence + the Machine.

Tina begins the song, singing half to the audience and half to Santana, who looks suitably impressed. They toss the lyrics to _Dogs Days Are Over_ back and forth, Tina's sweet, emotive voice matching up with Santana's intense, passionate singing better than they'd expected. The song stops being a competition during the chorus when they sing together and discover the audience is intrigued enough to turn away from their side conversations.

They sing another two in their turn before they've had enough of the smoky bar to last them for a while and it gets to that time of night when two teenage girls making their way home alone will draw the wrong kind of attention. Tina doesn't live too far from 47, so they walk slowly down the sidewalk, laughing and rehashing their night.

"No, but seriously, Santana, you can _sing_. Why didn't you ever audition for glee club?"

"I can't do a lot of things I've always wanted to because it'll draw attention to us. It's the same reason I didn't try out for the cheer squad and I don't date. There are a lot of things I want that I can't have. It's not fair, but it is the way it is."

Tina looks so sad it begins to intrude on Santana's good mood. She hip checks the girl and pulls a face. Tina lets it drop reluctantly. The desert night is freezing, and they don't have jackets. Tina steps closer and links their arms.

"I hear Breadstix is looking for a new singer. Now that Ms. Corcoran keeps Vocal Adrenaline in rehearsals until midnight, Rachel can't overwhelm dinner with the Broadway standards."

Santana laughs loudly. "I cannot imagine trying to enjoy a meal with Rachel Berry belting in the background. Why don't you audition?"

"Because I already have a job. And hustling pool doesn't count. As fun as swindling frat boys and petty theft is, you have talents well within the limits of the law and ethics. Just think about it. Sometimes you draw more attention by hiding yourself."

"You would know."

"I would, actually."

They're almost to the corner by the Crashdown and debating climbing onto Kurt's terrace and scaring him with Tina's vampire impersonation when Santana stops short. She pulls Tina backwards, and the other girl stumbles, but Santana catches her and holds her still. She gestures at the scene playing out up the street.

Men in black suits are removing boxes from the police station in the dead of night.


	3. Among Us

**ROSWELL**

**PART THREE**

**AMONG US**

_October 17_

_I've been thinking about life before Blaine saved me. I used to dream of something happening to break the routine, something that would make this small town feel bigger. Ever since I got my wish, I've realized one thing: the bigger your world gets, the bigger your problems get._

* * *

**THE KEY**

Sue's frown deepens when she steps her into office. When Deputy Ryerson called to tell her about the FBI agents in the station, she'd expected to find Terri perched on her desk or in her chair or some other presumptuous pose. Instead, she finds agents rifling through her files.

"What do you think you're doing?" Sue demands hotly.

Terri motions for the agents in identical black suits to continue their work. She turns and saunters over to the Sheriff's desk on high heels too delicate for a field agent. The woman Sue has codenamed the Honey Badger earns it now. She simpers while she replies.

"I have a warrant from the governor to search this office and remove anything relating to UFOs, alien sightings, and other alleged paranormal activity. Interfering would be ill-advised."

Sue's frown shifts into surprise. "You found blood on the shirt."

"We found a lot of things: tomatoes, salt, water, sugar, vinegar. Ketchup. No blood. Sheriff, you've wasted enough of the taxpayer's money trying to find something that isn't out there. No spaceship landed in 1947, and there are no aliens currently living in Roswell, New Mexico. You should forget about this case before your career goes the same way as your parents'."

The threat puts Sue on the defensive, but it also reminds her of a special piece of evidence she doesn't dare remove now. She'll have to hope the agents miss the innocuous bottle of protein powder in the bottom drawer of her desk, because if they disturb the plastic jar, they'll hear the key rattling around the empty container.

And the key is the one thing Sue is positive can prove there are aliens. She believes this because the lock the key opens is the one mystery she hasn't been able to unravel in thirty years of searching.

o

Blaine sprawls on his stomach when he sleeps deeply, and that's exactly how he's sleeping on Saturday morning at three am. When he hears the rattle of his window opening and feels the chill nighttime air enter the room, he pushes himself up from the mattress and seizes the baseball bat beside his bed. Years of paranoid dreams have given him excellent reflexes. He raises the bat at the dark shape silhouetted by the moonlight coming in through the window.

"If you hit me with that, I'll kick your ass," Santana warns.

Blaine breathes out sharply and drops the bat. As his eyes adjust to the dim light, he can make out Santana rolling her eyes at him. She turns as a second figure climbs through the window. Blaine makes a quick exit to his closet to pull on a tank top and a pair of pajama pants over his short boxer briefs when he realizes Tina is coming into his room.

"I thought you were having girls' night?"

He flips on the small desk lamp to give them a little light, and he sees that they're still dressed nicely. Santana throws herself onto his unmade bed. Tina hovers uncomfortably before sitting gingerly in his desk chair.

"We couldn't sleep."

"I was sleeping."

Santana pulls a face. "Amazing. How can you sleep when the key to your entire existence is out there? That picture that Sylvester showed Kurt means someone else is out there. Whoever he is, he might know who we are, where we're from, how to get back."

Blaine scrubs his hands over his face to fight off the sleep still clinging to his brain. He drops onto the end of the bed.

"Believe me, I want to know too, but the Sheriff has those pictures, so we can never see them. That would be impossible. Right, Santana?"

"I might have thought of one way."

He sighs. "Can this wait until tomorrow? It's three in the morning."

"No. It's now or never, Blaine. Tina and I saw the feds removing boxes from the Sheriff's office. They're gone now, and so is Sylvester."

Blaine starts, his head swiveling from Santana to Tina. Adrenaline causes the sleep creeping back into his limbs to rush away. Tina confirms everything, and Santana quickly explains how they waited around the corner for an hour until all the cars, except the Deputy on duty, left the station. His head drops into his hands the longer she talks. All of their nightmares are coming to life.

"If they've removed everything, what's the point?"

"The point is, what if they missed something? What if they don't know the significance of a clue that we'll recognize? The point is, it's time to stop sitting around hoping no one notices we're different and actually defend ourselves."

The possibility presents itself to Blaine slowly. He's never broken the law before, especially not to the degree of breaking into a police station and removing evidence. But he has thought about the other alien a lot and wondered what Kurt saw in those photographs.

"How would we do this? Hypothetically."

"The second story window. It's got a lock, but nothing you can't handle."

"Security system?"

"Even I could disable it."

"I don't know, Santana. All we know about this other alien is that he's a potential killer."

"With government agents after us, we have to get our asses in gear."

In hindsight, Blaine should have known from the start she'd convince him to go through with this insane plan. They walk over to the police station huddled into their jackets and trying to appear inconspicuous as they slip into the back alley. Tina hasn't said a word since coming into his room, but she's been on her phone. He realizes what she's been doing when they find Kurt leaning against the stucco wall waiting for them.

"You're kidding me," Santana whispers harshly at Tina.

"I thought it was only fair that Kurt gets to be a part of this if I am."

"'A part of this' meaning an accessory," Blaine says.

Kurt pushes off from the wall with his shoulder and meets them under the Sheriff's office window. He's dressed more simply than Blaine has ever seen him. His West Roswell High hooded sweatshirt is a little baggy, and his hair is unkempt. Obviously, he'd been sleeping too when Tina's flurry of text messages woke him up. He looks amazing tousled and sleepy. Blaine imagines running his hands through the hair worked free of hairspray, kissing him lightly until those heavy eyelids fall closed and Kurt sinks into his embrace, snuggling into the warmth of Kurt's body and sweatshirt.

Kurt bites his bottom lip delicately and reaches up to brush a stray curl off Blaine's forehead. He sucks in a breath at the touch and how much he's missed feeling Kurt's soft skin and silky hair. A blush creeps into Kurt's cheeks as he lowers his hand. His fingers brush down the angle of Blaine's jaw sending a full body shudder down his spine. He reaches out, needing more of Kurt. Their fingertips brush, eliciting a gasp from Kurt.

_Kurt lies on his bed with his eyes closed and the soundtrack of _West Side Story_ playing in the background. His fingertip dances over his bottom lip. He's dreaming of Blaine's hand tracing the lines of his mouth, bending low to kiss him lightly. Sparks of desire sing through his body, and he's becoming hard. His other hand reaches down, ghosting inside his open thighs and coming to rest over the straining zipper of the tight black pants he wore to school on Friday._

Blaine comes back into the moment with a strangled gasp and stuttering breath. He feels flushed all over, so keyed up he's hard and shivering with the memory of sensation. Kurt's staring at him wide-eyed, and he can only hope it's not because he accidentally reversed the connection and showed Kurt the countless times he's been in the same position with much less innocent fantasies.

"Is that a connection?" Tina whispers.

Kurt nods sharply. His head tilts towards his best friend, but he can't tear his eyes off of Blaine.

"We don't have time for the teen gay mating dance right now," Santana snaps. "In case you've failed to notice, we're loitering around a police station we intend to break into with a streetlamp shining on us, so maybe we should get on with it."

It takes all his willpower, but Blaine turns away from Kurt and nods at her. In the absence of his senses, overtaken completely by Kurt spread out and flushed and desiring him, Blaine, of all people, Santana takes charge.

"We're climbing up this pipe, so unless you've got massive guns hiding under black lace and sequins, you two are staying here as lookout. Blaine, go first and get the lock."

Blaine begins with a jump, seizes the thick pipe up high, and uses his feet to gain purchase on the side of the building. He shimmies up the wall, feeling a little like Spiderman and a lot like he's going to fall to his death at any moment. The Sheriff's window is covered by metal grating with a simple keyhole lock. Blaine adjusts his grip so he can hang on with one hand and holds his palm over the lock. Faint red light emits from his skin, the melted lock pops, and the grating swings away from the window. Climbing into the window is a shuffle of changing grips, and the sill digging into his gut, but he makes it inside the office. Santana comes in after him more gracefully, but then she's snuck in through windows a lot more than he has. She tosses him a pair of latex gloves.

"Where –? Never mind."

He pulls them on, and they start searching on opposite sides of the room. While Santana thumbs through bookshelves, Blaine opens the filing cabinets.

"There's nothing here at all."

"Look for false bottoms or whatever."

Santana pulls out the Sheriff's desk chair and begins riffling through drawers. Blaine is pretty sure metal filing cabinets can't have false bottoms or hidden chambers, so instead he flips his hand over and feels around the tops of drawers for anything shoved or taped there. His phone beeps in his back pocket. It's a text from Kurt, badly botched by autocorrect, but the urgency is evidence.

"Sylvester's back! Let's go."

Santana growls in frustration and tosses a bottle of protein powder back into the bottom drawer. It rattles. She pauses and lifts the container again even as Blaine hisses at her to come on. She unscrews the lid and shakes out a plain silver key.

"Santana!"

_Too bright colors shift around in strange shapes. A dome with triangular panels washes out under a blinding noon sun. Desert underbrush pokes up from the baked earth, and a hill rises behind the onslaught of shapes._

When Santana comes back from the vision, Blaine is hauling her to her feet, although she doesn't know when or why she'd fallen from the chair. She lets him shove her out the window. She pockets the key and swings onto the pipe. It's too rough to slide down, but she does anyway for speed. Her palms ache fiercely, and peeled skin makes her hands a bloody mess.

Blaine's feet hit the pavement, and all four teenagers run for the darkness of the alley between the streetlights. A glance over Santana's shoulder shows her that Blaine fixed the lock before he slid down the pipe. After the Sheriff's car passes, they dart out from the alley and hurry to the small playground across the street. Tina holds a stitch in her side, and Kurt sinks onto a picnic table. Blaine and Santana climb onto the top with their feet on the bench seat.

"Let me see your hands."

Santana holds her palms flat and lets Blaine heal her abused hands. His own minor injuries have already closed over with his innate healing ability.

"What did you find?" Kurt asks.

Blaine looks to Santana to answer. He wants to know what she saw as well. She reluctantly pulls out the key and shares it with Kurt and Tina. Blaine knows she had a vision of something connected to the key, so he takes it in his hand and concentrates, but the situation isn't intense enough to give him the same vision.

"What do you see?" she asks eagerly.

"… Ricky Martin in the shower," he jokes.

Kurt and Tina stifle giggles, but Santana glares at him. She snatches the key back, jumps off the picnic table, and stomps away. Blaine hurries after her while the others' laughter fades into concerned silence. Blaine catches up to her by the seesaws.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made a joke. I know why you want to find this other alien so badly."

Santana crosses her arms and stares at something in the dark distance. Her jaw flexes as she shakes her head. When she does speak, Blaine can't connect the dots from the key to her words. Her mind has gone somewhere else entirely that he can't quite follow.

"The fact that my life basically sucks is a good thing. We always have to be ready to leave. Maybe a year from now, maybe tomorrow." She fixes him with a stern gaze. "I see what's happening between you and Kurt. You can't let it. We can't get in too deep with them, Blaine. It only makes us weaker."

* * *

**AMONG US**

When Kurt walks into history class on Monday, he's not pleased to find Ms. Holliday is subbing again. He takes his seat and casts a pointed look at Blaine and Santana already in their seats a row back. When the bell rings, the undercover FBI agent – because Kurt cannot think of her as a teacher now that he knows – stands up from the desk to reveal she's wearing a vintage women's Army uniform.

"We've come to a very interesting time in history: post-WWII. Before we discuss the global events happening during this time, I think we should pause and talk about some local history. As you're all aware, Roswell became a household name in 1947 because of the supposed crashed spaceship. Just for the record, does anyone actually believe in aliens?"

The class mostly laughs derisively, although up front Jacob Ben Israel raises his hand. This causes more laughter from the class, but of a crueler kind.

"'To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational.' Stephen Hawking said that. There are over one hundred billion galaxies in the universe. I pity your inferior mind if you can't work out logically that life must exist elsewhere too."

"You seem passionate about this topic, Jacob, and that's awesome, because your assignment for this week is to create a multimedia local history project that sheds light on a major historical event in Roswell. It doesn't have to be the '47 crash or even from that time period. The important thing is to appreciate Roswell's unique history."

Ms. Holliday walks along the front row of desks handing out instructions sheets that are passed back. Kurt takes the opportunity to glance at Blaine and Santana. They look uncomfortable, but not as panicked as Kurt feels.

"Everyone alive has secrets," Ms. Holliday says. "It's the job of the historian to uncover the truth. You have the rest of the class hour to work on your ideas. Groups are allowed, and I'll write library passes if you need them."

Kurt wants to partner up with Blaine and Santana, but he knows it will raise Ms. Holliday's suspicion. It's probably what she expects them to do. So instead, he keeps his head down as he jots down ideas he could do with the old photographs in the Crashdown. From the corner of his eye, he sees that Santana and Blaine are working individually as well.

They need to do something about Ms. Holliday, and they all know it. But what can four teenagers do against the FBI?

o

Blaine gazes across the classroom during Honors study hall to where Kurt and Tina are whispering about something, and from the looks of it, not obsessing over Ms. Holliday's double identity for once. He sighs lightly and wishes for the hundredth time that they could all sit together, but whatever happened on Friday before they found the key has Santana's hackles raised. He does a double take when he realizes she has the key out.

"Put it away."

"You want to know, don't you?"

"It's a key. What can it possibly mean?"

She stares in utter disbelief.

"The FBI took everything from Sylvester's office, and this is the key she kept. It has to mean something. I say we follow where it takes us. You told me once not very long ago that you'd want to know about our past. Has that changed?"

Blaine sighs again, but not in the lovesick way he does while watching Kurt.

"No, it hasn't."

Less than halfway through study hall, their history assignment returns to torture him. He's already decided to do a project with headlines from the crash, simply because he has already collected them all, and thinks he should be done with it, but Jacob Ben Israel comes crashing into the classroom with a handheld camera and Lauren Zizes carrying a boom microphone.

"Oh my God," Santana mutters.

Jacob whispers to their study hall monitor, Miss Reese, and gets a quick nod. She stands up from her desk and approaches Blaine. He has a sinking feeling in his gut, and he's not wrong to think this spells disaster.

"Jacob is doing a project for the history department that you've been chosen to participate in. You're excused from class for fifteen minutes."

"Do I have to?" Blaine asks. He glances nervously towards Santana and shrinks down into his seat. "I kind of have a lot of homework to do."

"This is an honor, Mr. Anderson. You shouldn't pass up this opportunity."

Santana nods infinitesimally, and Blaine knows that to refuse will raise more eyebrows than if he just does whatever Jacob is working on. He leaves his books on his desk and follows Jacob and Lauren into the hallway. The large wrestler has always scared him, and the way she's staring at him like he's a chocolate bar isn't alleviating any of his anxiety. On the other hand, Jacob's twitchy movements and frizzy hair – obviously brushed out curls – have always weirded Blaine out. They lead him to an empty classroom in the social studies wing.

"What's this all about?" Blaine asks.

"It's my history assignment for Ms. Holliday. I'm comparing attitudes of Roswellians about extraterrestrial life now to right after the crash in '47. Let me just set up my camera, and we can start."

Blaine hesitantly slides into the hard plastic chair beneath a pair of stage lights. The empty classroom is the backdrop to his interview, apparently to mark him clearly as a student. He breathes deeply through his nose and tries to plan his obfuscations in advance.

"Okay. And we're rolling. Please state your name, age, and a little bit about your life in Roswell."

The interview ends quickly enough. At least Jacob works from a script and keeps the attack-style interviews for his gossip pieces. Blaine's fears aren't assuaged, however, because Kurt is called out next for an interview, and then Tina and Santana. Artie rolls out towards the end of class and comes back in muttering about hack documentarians. Aside from the five of them, no one else from Honors study hall is taken out of class. Considering that Artie is friendly with Blaine and Santana and Kurt and Tina, the whole things strikes an ominous note.

o

Two days later, Jacob Ben Israel nervously waits in the janitor's closet for the substitute history teacher to come into her office. When she strides in on spike heels, he starts and shrinks back into his chair. There's something about her that he finds both alluring and terrifying.

"Am I in trouble, Ms. Holliday?"

"A little bit," she says honestly. She takes her seat across the desk and leaves him worrying for a few moments. "I've had some complaints about your interviewing style. Some people have said you're a little more Maury and a little less Anderson Cooper."

Jacob's brow furrows. He hasn't ambushed anyone in the hallway or stirred up the rumor mill or placed hidden cameras in the eraser room. He thinks he's been the epitome of journalistic integrity for the first and only time in his life.

"I'm going to need your raw footage to judge the matter myself. I'll give it back tomorrow if everything looks okay to me."

Jacob hands over his footage. Like every teenager with a reasonable degree of respect, he's been conditioned not to question his teachers, especially ones who have been so helpful to him.

"By the way, Ms. Holliday, thanks for the additional questions you gave me. I think I got some really good stuff in those answers."

"I'm sure you did."

After Jacob is gone, Holly puts the DVD into her laptop and pulls up the video files. The first thing she does is copy the files. She skips over the decoy students she'd selected for Jacob to interview and goes directly to the ones she's most interested in. It's an insightful two hours she spends watching the clips.

It begins the same: "Please state your name, age, and a brief summary of your life in Roswell."

"Blaine Anderson. I'm seventeen-years-old. I moved to Roswell when I was six and my parents adopted me. I'm a senior at West Roswell High."

"Kurt Hummel. I'm seventeen, and a senior at West Roswell. I've lived here my entire life, but not for much longer. I'm getting out of this sad little oasis town and moving to New York City for college and fame on the Great White Way."

"I'm Santana Lopez. Seventeen and a senior. I've lived in Roswell since I was six."

"My name is Tina Cohen-Chang. I'm seventeen, and a senior at West Roswell High. I moved to Roswell in the seventh grade when my dad started working on an archeological excavation in Fraiser Woods."

And then Jacob's question for the assignment: "What do you think of our town's reputation as the alien capital of the world?"

"I guess it's just the way it is. It can be silly sometimes, like the taco stand by the highway that has an alien in a sombrero. Or I guess it can be fun, like the uniforms the waiters at the Crashdown wear."

"My family owns the Crashdown, so I see all the crazies when they come into town for the Crash Festival and the Crash Convention. Mostly, it's a hassle and so kitschy it's embarrassing. But … I served William Shatner the Captain Kirk Sampler Platter once, and I auctioned off an autographed menu on eBay and bought myself half the Jimmy Choo collection that season."

"It makes me want to crawl under a rock and die with embarrassment."

"I used to think it was funny the way everyone is obsessed with UFOs without actually believing the crash happened. But now I wonder if maybe we're celebrating and profiting from the death of hundreds or thousands of living beings."

Another of Jacob's questions: "Do you believe in extraterrestrial life?"

"I …. No, I don't think so."

"I don't believe in a lot of things because there is no proof. So if there are aliens, I'd need some pretty compelling evidence to believe."

"No."

"I guess they could be out there somewhere. Like you said in class, there are a hundred billion galaxies. It's pretty arrogant to think we're the only life in such a vast universe."

Finally, one of Holly's questions: "If you had incontrovertible proof that aliens are living among us right here in Roswell, how would you react?"

"I think I would be scared at first of someone so different from me, but then I think I would come to see that if they've been living among us this whole time and no harm has come to us, then they're not really a threat. They're probably just ordinary people, albeit of a different species, going about their ordinary lives just like I am."

Laughter. "I'd probably run out of the room screaming." More laughter. "I don't know. That would probably be a really intense moment. I don't think I can predict how I would react until it happened."

"I'd say very loudly how stupid they are to hang out in the alien capital of the world."

"I would be afraid."

Holly's final question: "A famous pair of alien hunters from Roswell once wrote, 'Aliens would likely not possess the lung capacity or brain capacity for extended stay on Earth.' What do you think these aliens hypothetically living among us might be like?"

Silence. "Intelligent enough not to step off their spaceship if they can't breathe in our atmosphere."

"I'll take one Clark Kent of my very own, please."

"What the hell kind of idiot wrote that? You're telling me a species that built spaceships to come here doesn't have the 'brain capacity' to survive? Whoever wrote that needs to take a class in logic."

"Wow. That's really … I don't think that sounds very accurate. I don't think humans have the market on intelligent life in the universe. I don't know what alien life might look like, but if they can travel to Earth, then they must be pretty intelligent."

Holly pauses the file and leans back in her chair. These kids, they're open books, even when they try to hide the truth. She writes notes by each of their names:

Blaine Anderson: moderate answers, people-pleaser, seeking acceptance – will break if pushed?

Kurt Hummel: excellent under pressure, slim chance of breaking psychologically

Santana Lopez: defensive, flight risk – susceptible to manipulation?

Tina Cohen-Chang: inconsistent answers, empathizes with and protecting aliens – weak link?

o

After the last of the customers had been shuffled out of the Crashdown, the counters wiped down, and the chairs put on tables, Kurt and Tina sit on one side of a booth across from Blaine and Santana. For several minutes, no one speaks. When Tina asks the question, it's not resigned or defeated, but serious and solemn.

"So, what can four teenagers do against the FBI?"

* * *

**ARTISTIC VISION**

_Too bright colors shift around in strange shapes. A dome with triangular panels washes out under a blinding noon summer sun. Desert underbrush pokes up from the baked earth, and a hill rises behind the onslaught of shapes._

Santana sits up in her bed, gasping for air and drenched in sweat as if she's run a marathon. The images shatter the vestiges of sleep clinging to her mind, and she scrambles across her tiny closet-turned-bedroom for a sheet of paper. The dream is so vivid, almost burned into the backs of her eyes. She's no artist, but she sketches quickly and approves of the picture she's created.

She jams her feet into shoes and pulls on a jacket to stave off the chilly night air. She pulls it tighter around her when she climbs out the window and drops down onto the dead grass in the shadow of the rickety trailer. It's a long walk to Blaine's house, but she won't be able to sleep anymore tonight, and she has to show him this.

The moon hangs high overhead when she finally reaches the Anderson's and jogs around the side of the house to Blaine's bedroom window. She drags her hand over the frame, pulling the lock free and presses her palms flat to push the window open. Blaine wakes up sometime while she's climbing inside. He sits up in bed with the comforter pooling around him.

"I thought it might be you."

Santana pulls out the folded drawing stuffed into her pocket and shoves it in Blaine's direction. He squints at it as she holds it in the beam of moonlight coming in through the crack in the curtains. While she talks, she kicks off her shoes and shrugs off her jacket. Before he has the drawing in hand, she's climbing into bed with him.

"I dreamt it. More clearly than I ever have before. This is the vision I saw when I touched the key from Sheriff Sylvester's office."

"A semi-circle?"

"No, this."

"And this is …?

"I don't know, but I saw it. I had to tell you."

"I appreciate you waking me up at three am to tell me about your dreams of semi-circles, but maybe we can talk about this in the morning?"

Santana rolls her eyes, but Blaine collapses backwards onto his pillow and pats the one next to his head. With a shrug, she shimmies down under the blankets because she's not walking all that way back to her house when she could maybe get some sleep and wear a spare change of clothes from the drawer Blaine had cleared for her years ago.

"Fine. But be prepared to talk about this all day tomorrow to make up for insulting my artistic abilities."

"Sure thing," Blaine yawns.

In the morning, they'll make sure his parents don't see her. One time, Mrs. Anderson found them asleep together, and they'd had to endure countless insulting questions about how long they'd been together and when certain 'phases' had ended. But for right now, she let the steady, even breathing of her best friend soothe her.

o

During study hall, Santana requests a pass to use the art classroom. She doesn't take art, nor does she ever plan to, but she needs more supplies than a pencil and notebook if she wants to create a larger, more detailed image of the dome.

The art teacher – some woman who wore billowing peasant blouses like it was still 1971 – had left the room unattended, which gives Santana the run of supplies. She picks a large sketchpad and rifles through some drawers until she finds a chunk of charcoal or whatever artists call it. It stains her fingers black as she sketches, but the end result is well worth it. Even Blaine can't quip about it being a semi-circle anymore now that she's added in the triangular panels.

The next day, she spends study hall in the art classroom again. This time, she squirts dollops of paint onto a palette and fills in the triangular panels with the colors she recalls from her dream. Without training, her application of the paint leaves something to be desired. Luckily, all she has to do is wave her hand over the paper to remove the paint and start over.

On the third day, she has a breakthrough, but not in the sense she'd expected. The dome from her dreams consumes all her thoughts, so she assumes if she paints it enough it will trigger something else. And it does. Just nothing dormant in her own mind.

The quick, lonely clip of hard soled shoes interrupts Santana's painting, and she glances over her shoulder to see who is roaming the school during study hall. It's either someone with a bathroom pass or someone who fashions themselves a badass cutting. She turns back to her painting when she sees Kurt trussed up in peacock blue, but he pauses outside the door.

"Santana? So this is where you've been all week?"

"It would appear so."

He misses the bite in her voice that should tell him to leave her alone and comes around the canvas to see what she's working on. Suddenly, she's less annoyed and more nervous at Mr. Sophistication judging her artwork, but all her uncertain emotions present themselves the same way. She lifts a perfectly tweezed eyebrow, daring him to criticize.

"This is what you saw when you touched Sheriffs Sylvester's key?" She nods. "I've seen this before."

"Wait. What?"

He nods quickly. "I mean, it wasn't these colors exactly, but … yeah, I know what this is. Come on. I'll show you."

Santana tosses down the paintbrush and leaves the colors out to harden on the palette. She assumes they're heading for the library, but Kurt charges straight out the backdoor and jogs down the wheelchair ramp to the parking lot where he climbs up into an old pickup truck.

"Are we going to the dome?"

"Yes and no. Text Blaine and ask him to take Tina home after school because we won't be back in time."

"You know, I don't really do this whole 'just trust me' thing."

Kurt doesn't answer as he pulls out of the parking lot, and with a growl of frustration, Santana sends the message to their friends. As they drive through town, she steals glances at Kurt. She's never really spent time around him except when Blaine is there too, and they're too busy making heart eyes and sighing longingly to notice anyone else. He's attractive enough in a soft way, he's smart by inferior human standards, and he's not afraid to be himself in this ridiculously close-minded town.

"Why are you staring at me?" he asks.

"I'm trying to figure out what makes you so special that Blaine was willing to risk everything to save you."

"That makes two of us."

Santana's eyebrows shoot up. He didn't even flinch at her statement or hesitate with his answer. She sits back against the rough seat cover and crosses her arms over her chest for a few minutes while she mulls over this new information.

"You're not good enough for him, you know."

"Believe me, I know."

"No one is good enough for him. You don't understand what it's like to be us, what it's like to be _him_. He has this incredible gift to save people, and he has to sit back every day and watch people die because if he doesn't, _we_ die."

Kurt grips the steering wheel harder. He stares straight ahead and doesn't speak for too long.

"I can't help the way Blaine feels about me, or how I feel about him. I'm not trying to take him away from you, Santana."

She starts. That wasn't where she was going with this at all. Unless it was. She doesn't know and doesn't want to think about it, so she snaps:

"Good. Because he's all I have."

They don't speak again until Kurt pulls into the garage behind his house. Santana thinks they're going inside, but instead he directs her across the street. She stops dead on the double center line, her face a mask of indignation. The glowing green sign across the street from the Crashdown advertises a place she's avoided her entire life: the UFO Center.

"You have got to be kidding me," she snaps.

"Do you want to find the dome or not? Because this is the only place I've ever seen anything like it."

With a long-suffering sigh and a pointed roll of her eyes, she jogs across the second half of the street. Kurt fixes her with a pitying look as he holds open the door for her. It's five dollars each to go inside, and she makes him pay. She thinks it will ease the sting of being in this place, but she's wrong.

The museum is down a half-flight of stairs from street level. The dim overhead lighting is accented with green floodlights, and the air conditioner is cranked up so high the chill raises goosebumps on her arms. Everywhere she looks, she sees horrible clichéd scenes: little green rubber aliens on autopsy tables, wax Army soldiers training weapons on aliens climbing out of a papier-mâché wrecked spaceship, films playing archival footage against blank walls, and tourists eating it up like they're at Disneyland.

She feels sick and minutes away from crying. She wants to run away, but Kurt has her by the wrist and pulls past grotesque scenes to a display case of 'alien artifacts recovered from the crash.' He points at the display credits beside the case, and Santana's eyes lock onto the image at the top. Two people, a serious-looking middle-aged couple, stand in front of the dome. Desert underbrush and a rocky ridge frame the photograph. Santana shuffles closer and reads the text below.

"Wait. Sylvester? As in … Sheriff Sue Sylvester?" she asks.

Kurt's eyes widen, and he too hurries forward to read the information. "She told me her parents were alien hunters, but I didn't really put everything together. So that key …."

"It was evidence, but not from a police investigation. It's from her parents' files which are kept in this dome that the key shows me."

"It's in Marathon, Texas," Kurt said, reading the final line of the plaque.

Santana takes out her phone and snaps a picture of the sign for future reference. Now that she has what she needs, she wants to get the hell out of this macabre museum. She turns and runs back up the stairs and onto the street. She sucks down hot air like it's refreshing instead of draining and squeezes her eyes shut to push away the horrific scenes from the museum.

But she won't forget them. Not never.

o

On Wednesday morning, Kurt pretends to be sick in American Literature so he can get a pass to the nurse's office. Instead of going to see the nurse, he sneaks into the pool where he knows Blaine has Aquatics this semester. The overpowering scent of chlorine rushes into his nose, and his eyes chase the dancing lights of the rippling water reflecting off the walls. He hovers inside the door between the bleachers and wall, but Blaine spots him nonetheless.

Blaine swims over to the wall and hoists himself out of the pool. Kurt's breath catches in his throat, and his eyes go wide. Blaine is wearing a Speedo that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. Water cascades down his lean muscles and catches in droplets on the hair on his arms, chest, and the trail that disappears into his Speedo.

Kurt should have thought this through a little more. There are certain realities to being a teenage boy, such as the multitude of boners that happen for no reason. And there are certain realities to being a teenage boy with a crush, such as the multitude of boners that definitely appear for a reason, such as when said crush is wearing nothing but a skimpy bathing suit that shows off his big cock. And when did Kurt's mind descend into the gutter? Oh, right, when he popped this major boner two seconds ago.

And he doesn't even have his messenger bag with him to hide it. Shit. He knows his cheeks are flaming, but he hopes it can be passed off as coming from the humidity of the pool and not from the oh-so obvious bulge in his tight pants.

"Hey, Kurt. What's up?"

Blaine grabs a towel from the bleachers and ruffles his damp curls to soak up some of the water dripping into his eyes. Kurt swallows thickly and tries to speak, but he can't because his eyes are too busy following the path of the towel over the column of Blaine's neck and defined arms and peaked nipples. He's too obvious with his leering. He can tell by the way Blaine fidgets, and he tries to pull himself together, he really does, but he can't.

Blaine ducks his head to hide his blush, and of course ducking one's head requires looking down, which puts Kurt's embarrassing and inappropriate – although totally justified – boner on display. Kurt can't help but notice Blaine's eyes go wide and how he's no longer concerned with drying off, but lets the towel hang strategically in front of him.

"So … umm, what's going on?" Blaine tries again.

Kurt's cheeks are burning. Almost literally, he thinks, because if he blushes any more his face will probably catch on fire. He has a boner because of Blaine; Blaine has a boner because of Kurt, and they both know it. God, he wants to crawl into a hole and die. After he's had his fingers twisted in wet curls and Blaine's head between his thighs and –

Jesus God! What is wrong with him?

He did actually have a reason for coming here.

Coming.

Fuck.

"Can we meet at the Crashdown later?" Kurt blurts out.

His voice comes – _Yes, please_ – out high and breathy like it always does when he's nervous or embarrassed, and since he's currently both, it's a miracle he hasn't reached a pitch only dogs can hear. Blaine nods quickly, and thankfully takes pity on Kurt and doesn't ask why they can't just talk now.

Kurt flees the pool, and when he finally reports to the nurse's office he's flushed, clammy, and unsteady enough on his feet that she buys his illness and lets him take a nap during third hour, which is exactly what he needs anyway.

o

Blaine arrives at the Crashdown just before the dinner rush, so Kurt has time to loiter while he pretends to take his order. Today wasn't the first time Kurt has masturbated while thinking of Blaine, but it was the first time he had such a visceral reaction with Blaine in the room. Meeting his eye is a little harder than usual.

"Kurt, should we talk about –"

"Nope. No. Absolutely not. I'll go get you a cherry soda with lime."

Kurt rushes off behind the safety of the counter and takes longer than he ever thought possible to prepare a cherry soda with lime. His dad stares at him strangely as he fusses over the exact measurement of ice in the glass.

"What?" he snaps.

His dad shakes his head and holds his hands up in surrender. Kurt sighs deeply, because he can't delay anymore. When he sets down Blaine's usual, he takes out his order book without making eye contact.

"So you didn't have anything to talk to me about? Because it kind of seemed like you came –" _Oh, God._ "– to the pool today for a reason."

"I hate being a teenage boy," Kurt mutters.

Blaine laughs loudly, drawing Kurt's attention at last, but quickly slaps a hand over his mouth. "Sorry. I'm sorry. It's just … I was thinking the same thing after … you know. Not that I'd exactly want to be a teenage girl either."

"No. Me either."

Kurt sighs and slides into the booth opposite Blaine. Their eyes dance around, finally meeting and sending color into their cheeks. They laugh lightly, nervously. The tension shatters, for now at least, although a frisson always exists around them.

"So you wanted to talk to me about something?"

"Yeah," Kurt says. Then he cringes, because this is going to be as bad as their awkwardness, but in less pleasant ways. "Remember how you said we shouldn't go to Santana with information that might get her riled up?"

Blaine's smile dips into a deep frown. "Oh, Kurt …."

"I'm sorry, Blaine. I saw one of her paintings of the dome, and it triggered a memory, and I took her to the UFO Center to show her where I'd seen it before. I just …. I was trying to help, and I didn't realize until after that maybe she and I have that in common that we don't always think through all the consequences before we act."

The other boy shifts in his seat. "So, wait. You found the dome?"

"Yeah. It's in Marathon, Texas. And get this, it's owned by Sheriff Sylvester's parents," Kurt whispers conspiratorially.

Blaine's face is a picture of panic. "No. No, no, no. Kurt, I'm sorry. I have to go."

"Wait! Why?"

Blaine is already out of the booth and heading for the door by the time Kurt catches him.

"Kurt, Santana found the dome _and didn't tell me_. That means she knows I'll try to stop her from going. She'll just go on her own, and if this is all connected to the Sheriff somehow …. I have to find Santana. Right now."

"Wait. Blaine, seriously, two minutes okay? Please?"

When he's sure Blaine won't leave without him, Kurt rushes behind the counter and into the back searching for his dad. He finds him in the office doing payroll for the deposits tomorrow. He looks up with a curious expression.

"What's up, kiddo? One minute you're OCD about ice, and now you look like you're about two seconds away from having a panic attack."

"Yes! That's exactly it, Dad. See, I have this history project due this week, and I just found out that I screwed up majorly."

Technically, not a lie. He did have a project for Ms. Holliday due, and he had screwed up majorly. Although connecting them with only a comma-and did stretch the limits of truthfulness to its breaking point.

"I hate to pull strings, but … just this once, Dad, please? I'm really, really worried about this."

"I know you wouldn't play this card if it wasn't something really important, Kurt," Burt says. "Anyway, it's been a while since I waited tables during dinner rush. It's about time I got back out there."

"Thanks, Dad. I'll be gone until late."

"Stay over if it gets too late."

The way he's not upset or suspicious in the least puts a knot in Kurt's stomach. He makes a point of not lying to his dad, and letting him assume he's studying with Tina treads far too close for his comfort. But if he doesn't toe that line, he'll be kept out of this mess that he created.

Blaine is tapping his fingers rapidly against the counter when Kurt comes out front again. He starts up, grabs Kurt's hand, pulls him out of the Crashdown, and runs down the sidewalk to where he parked his car.

From his place behind the counter, it looks to Burt an awful lot like his son just lied to him to spend the evening with his secret boyfriend.

* * *

**285 SOUTH, PART I**

Blaine and Kurt find Santana at her house. Kurt hardly has time to express any shock over Santana living in a trailer park before more pressing and decidedly less superficial matters distract him. Such as the rapidly escalating fight between Blaine and Santana. Kurt doesn't have siblings, but he imagines if he did, they would have these kinds of brutally honest fights that make others cringe like he does now.

"Give me the keys to the Corvette. I'm going to Marathon."

"We can't do that. We have an FBI tail. We need to just –"

Santana all but stomps her foot in answer, and Kurt could have told Blaine that the patronizing sympathy on his face will only incense her.

"I'm connected to this whole thing, Blaine. The key, the dome, it's all stuck in my head. I'm not stopping until I have all the answers."

"I'm not saying you should, just that we shouldn't rush into anything."

Santana's eyes narrow in disbelief, or so Kurt thinks until she speaks, and then he realizes the expression is actually derision. She's harsh, but not untrue.

"You never want to rush into anything. You want to sit around and hope the solution will fall into your lap. But you have to take control of your life at some point, Blaine. You have to make a decision and take action."

When Blaine purses his lips and crosses his arms over his chest, like he does when he's angry or hurt or both and trying desperately to hide it, Santana shakes her head and marches away in the general direction of downtown. Kurt hangs back for a moment to give Blaine his space, but he looks so small, so crushed by her words that he can't stay away. He can't exactly pull Blaine into a hug either with so many eyes potentially watching from windows, so he settles for resting his hand on Blaine's shoulder. Blaine casts him plaintive eyes, and Kurt wonders if it's some kind of apology. After all, there's more than one thing going on in his life that Blaine has chosen not to address.

o

Santana is fuming by the time she passes Gas World on the outskirts to downtown. She's had too much time alone since saying exactly what Blaine needs to hear, but it doesn't make her feel any better about herself. She knows better than most how sensitive he is, and yet she just couldn't reel in the bitch and speak to him like anyone who is a person speaks to the people they care about.

"Fuck!"

She aims a kick at a concrete parking barrier and immediately regrets it. She hops around and sits on a freestanding stone wall while she rubs her toes. About the only thing that could make her day worse is the FBI pulling up right now.

A car does pull up, but it's not an enemy. Santana watches and considers while Tina pumps gas and dashes inside to pay once the nozzle is back in the holder. She moves on instinct. She needs a car, and as much as she wishes they weren't, she and Tina are friends sort of, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Tina even very helpfully left the keys in the ignition.

When Tina comes out of the gas station, she stops short because her mom's car is nowhere to be found. Panic begins welling up in her chest. Not only are her parents going to kill her, but she's going to have to talk to the Sheriff again and play ten more rounds of 'I don't know about anything suspicious.' She's half a minute away from waterworks when the Jetta zooms around the gas pumps and screeches to a halt in front of her. The window rolls down.

"You really shouldn't leave your keys in the ignition. Come on. Get in."

Tina pulls her seatbelt across her lap just in time for Santana to hit the accelerator so forcefully the tires squeal, and then they're taking a right out of town instead of a left towards the library where she planned to finish her history project.

"Umm …. Where are we going?"

Santana doesn't put on the indictor before taking a hard left onto the highway, and Tina grabs hold of the door to steady herself through the sharp turn.

"Marathon, Texas."

"There's an alien abduction joke in there somewhere. Why are we going to Marathon, Texas? And do you really have to break about ten traffic laws at a time to do it?"

Santana pushes the accelerator down harder and flashes a sardonic smile at her not amused friend. (And makes a mental note to stop thinking of Tina as a friend. She meant what she told Blaine after they found the key. Humans make them weak.) But she does fill Tina in on everything by the time they get to Artesia, and considering how fast Santana is driving, that's an accomplishment.

"Wow. That's …. Okay. Let's find out what this is all about."

Santana peers across the car with disbelief knotting her brow. Unlike Blaine (and Kurt by extension), Tina appears completely at ease with the plan. She's leaning back in the passenger seat, neck rolled to take in the bright twilight painting the desert in gorgeous shades, and humming along to the radio.

"I'm crossing state lines in a stolen car with a minor," Santana says.

"What?" Tina asks, startled.

"In addition to the moving violations, I mean."

"Well, yes, but not really. The car isn't stolen if I let you borrow it, and the whole minor thing is negated if I want to come with you, which I do."

Santana's brow furrows deeper. She holds her palm out over the air vents and makes the air conditioning blow colder. She knows Tina hates that. To her utter dismay, Tina closes her eyes and freaking _hums pleasantly_. Santana drops her hand and lets the air conditioning go back to normal. She grips the steering wheel tighter because she is so fucking pissed.

They are not friends. _They are not friends._ _**They are not friends.**_

The girls don't say much for the next hour. Tina sings along to the radio, and Santana pushes the pedal down until the car reaches a speed that makes it difficult to control the steering. They approach the New Mexico-Texas border sometime after sunset when the heat of the day leaves the nighttime bright midnight blue. Tina jolts upright suddenly and scrambles around for her phone.

"Oh my God! I have to let my parents know I won't be home tonight and get Kurt to cover for me or they'll report me missing, and then we'll have even more problems to deal with."

"Not Kurt!" Santana says too quickly. "I mean …." She puts on a cheery smile. "Why not tell them you're studying with me and having a sleepover?"

Tina regards her carefully for too long before she nods. "Okay."

She taps out a text and sends it, and then begins composing another. Santana glances over suspiciously, but she can't read the text the way Tina has her phone angled. Her eyes glance up to the window and the bright reflection of the screen in the dark glass. She dives for the phone, but Tina pulls her arms up too quickly.

"I said not to tell Kurt!"

"Why not?" the other girl shouts back. "He's _Kurt_. What's he going to do?"

"Don't you dare send that text message! Give me your phone."

She dives for the phone again, but Tina twists away. In her urgency to stop the text from sending, Santana stretches and inadvertently pulls the car too far to the right. The rumble strips have only just begun roaring in warning, but it's already too late. Even as Santana slams on the brake and tries to swerve back onto the highway, the front fender screeches in protest against the guardrail and the wing mirror snaps free and flies into the darkness overhead.

The girls react on instinct: Tina screams, Santana's palm glows white. The engine cuts off without warning and the car rolls to a stop with steam billowing out from under the hood. Tina's mouth stays stretched in a silent scream, and her hands are raised to shielding her face. Santana growls and slams her hand against the steering wheel. It takes Tina longer to react.

"You crashed my mom's car. _You crashed my mom's car!_ Oh my God, what is wrong with you, Santana!"

"How is this my fault? You're the one who wouldn't listen to me when I told you not to send that damned text message!"

"How is it your fault? _You're the driver_, and you were going over about thirty miles over the speed limit, and then you used your freaky alien powers to … _whatever_ to my mom's car!"

"My freaky alien powers?" Santana fires back. "You know what, Morticia? Fuck you, that's what."

Santana bolts out of the car and slams the door behind her. She's already stomping into the darkness cut only by the occasional pair of headlights and a garish neon sign ahead by the time Tina climbs out of the car.

"Where are you going?" she shouts.

"Away. Before I come over there and rip out that severe hairdo and use it to make a wig for the life-sized witch I put on my porch at Halloween," she screams back.

"You can't leave me out here alone."

"Watch me."

Santana heads for the neon sign hidden back from the road. She second guesses herself when she sees the name of the establishment: Desert Rose Motel. But it's late, and they're not going anywhere in the Cohen-Chang's totaled car, so she might as well get some sleep. She thinks she's alone until she comes out of the front office with a key and finds Tina, arms crossed and mouth thin, waiting for her.

"God. Go away. I already have one puppy following me around, and his name is Blaine. I don't need you peeing on my carpet too."

"I doubt Blaine pees on the carpet."

"You didn't know him when we were kids."

Santana twists the key in the lock, pushes open the door, and flicks on the lights. She and Tina stare in horror at the motel room. Green satin covers the round bed and drapes from the ceiling, and gold wallpaper and accents can't disguise the layer of sleaze on everything. Santana sums it up best.

"It's like the porno version of _Aladdin_."

Tina snorts a laugh, and Santana follows a moment later. It's too much. The key, the car accident, the fighting, the hideous room. There's no way for them to deal with the stress of it all, so they don't. Tina claps a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughs, and Santana shakes her head while trying to hold back her grin, but she can't.

"And I can't believe I'm in a place like this with you, of all people."

"Hey!" Tina cries and nudges Santana. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Santana nudges back and starts a silly, lighthearted shoving match. They come face-to-face with hands entwined and closer together than they'd intended. Santana's eyes fall to Tina's smiling mouth, and imagines stretching forward just a few inches and tasting her lip gloss. She blinks and takes an unsteady step back, because she doesn't know where the hell that thought came from. Tina senses that she's closed off again.

"I'm sorry, Santana. What I said about your powers was totally uncalled for. You know I didn't really mean it, right?"

Santana bobs her head. "I know. Emotions running high and all that. I didn't mean what I said about your hair either. I think … it's really pretty. I'm jealous I have to pay for mine."

A shy smile flickers its way onto Tina's face, and a pretty blush rises in her cheeks. She turns her face away and down, playing with the ends of her hair. Santana's breath catches in her throat, and her heart flutters strangely in her chest. She feels tingly all over and disconnected like she's floating away from the world.

"But I'm not beautiful like you are."

Surprise flashes over Santana's face. She shakes her head sadly and slides onto the end of the bed, sitting with one foot planted on the floor and the other leg curled up under her. Tina mirrors her position.

"There's a big difference between looking beautiful and being beautiful. I might look this way, but what's so great about that when the things that are in your head and heart are so hateful all the time? The things I say sometimes …. If we didn't have our unique species connecting us, Blaine would have given up on me years ago."

"That's not true," Tina says quietly.

"No, it's not. Because people like Blaine – people like _you_, Tina – are the beautiful ones."

Tina's lips part and her eyes widen. Those pretty brown eyes dart over Santana's face like she's seeing her for the first time. She draws in a breath as she curls her hand around Santana's.

"I see how beautiful you are."

Santana can't breathe in this stifling room. Every instinct in her body tells her to retreat, run, hide. Anything to get away from this feeling – the one she's only known around Blaine, but with a new twist to it that she doesn't understand. But instead she's shifting closer, her free hand brushing against Tina's silky hair. Tina tilts her face up, blinks slowly.

"You can. I'm not afraid of what I feel."

Santana is afraid, desperately afraid of everything she feels. She doesn't understand people who don't fear their emotions, who don't fear being different. But she wants to.

Tina remains still and lets Santana decide if she wants to or not. Tina knows this has the potential to change everything or nothing, but she's willing to take that leap. There's something about this girl that compels her to come out of her shell. She's comfortable around Santana in ways she's not around anyone else but Kurt, and she really shouldn't be because Santana is brash and a little mean sometimes, and Tina is so easily wounded. But she is, and there has to be a reason for it. Maybe this is it, maybe it's not, but she wants to know either way.

Tina's eyes slip closed, and she waits. Breath that smells like sugar and spice ghosts over her mouth, and then a pair of lips so much softer and fuller than any boy's press against hers. She draws in a deep breath through her nose at the new sensation sending sparks down her spine, leans into the kiss, and moves her lips with Santana's.

Strawberry lip gloss meets Santana's tongue. It's so feminine and perfect. The taste of it solidifies something for her that she's never admitted before even to herself. In jest, yes, but this is earnest and sincere and absolute. She pulls away then, just far enough to separate their mouths. Tina chases her, pressing two more lingering kisses to her mouth, and Santana offers a final, chaste closing kiss.

She sits back heavily and waits for Tina's eyes to flutter open. She feels laid bare. More than naked, more than exposed. Open. It's terrifying. More terrifying than anything she's considered before in her life, even more so than the horrors that undoubtedly await if she's captured by the government.

A grin passes over Tina's mouth before her eyes open slowly. When she finds Santana staring, she flushes deep crimson and looks away.

"That … changes things," she says softly. "For me, at least. That changes things."

Santana can't name the feelings crawling up through her chest, and she doesn't want to. There are too many, and they conflict yet complement in the strangest kind of harmony.

"In a good way, I hope," she manages to say.

Tina's look is so open voluntarily, so innocently honest that it sends shivers through Santana.

"In the very best way."

* * *

**285 SOUTH, PART II**

Kurt really loves riding in the Corvette with the top down, the wind rushing through his hair, and the desert sunset painting the world in brilliant shades. He'll regret the wind aspect later, and he keeps himself from commenting on how much he loves this car because he knows how Blaine feels about it. Instead, he keeps his elbow propped up on the door and his face tilted into the airflow and sneaks surreptitious glances at Blaine's arms as he shifts gears.

"Are you in a better mood yet?" he shouts over the roaring wind. "Because we could listen to some more Katy Perry if it'll do the trick."

Blaine pulls a face. Ever since Kurt got the text message from Tina about heading to Marathon, Texas, Blaine has been close to boiling over and ranting about Santana. He's never been so close to angry in front of Kurt, and it unsettles him because Blaine is normally always so calm and put together. But he's seen into Blaine's soul; he knows this is the real boy, but he's still adjusting to it.

"Yeah. I'm … fine. I'm fine, Kurt."

Kurt doesn't believe him for a second.

"It's almost dark. Let's stop to put up the top and fill up the gas tank," Blaine suggests.

He pulls into a gas station/convenience store just outside of Carlsbad. The step up from the low seat is far, but it stretches the muscles in the best way. While Kurt goes inside to pick up some acceptable food, if such a thing can be found in a convenience store, Blaine pumps gas. He tries not to dwell on the mess Santana might have gotten them into and tries instead to think about the pleasant part of this trip. He gets to spend hours alone in a car with Kurt. They still have over three hours to go, plus the drive home.

Kurt returns with a plastic bag swinging on his arm, a flounce in his step, and a superior grin. He gestures at the bag, but hurriedly sets it down to help Blaine put up the soft top.

"I found acceptable food. Also, the bathroom is adequate, which is more than I can say for most men's restrooms at gas stations. Is it okay to eat in the car or should we loiter on the sidewalk?"

"I don't want to waste any more time. It's fine to eat in the car. Try to spill some mustard or something."

He mutters the last part, but he thinks Kurt hears it clearly judging by the sorrowful eyes that follow him into the convenience store. Kurt's right about the restroom: adequate. When he comes outside again, it's fully dark with a lingering heat haze and fireflies casting a faint glow.

"I told you, jackass, if you aren't talking to anyone, hang up the damned phone. Some of us have busted cars and no cell reception."

Blaine glances to the left at the irate man who looks like he walked miles in the desert heat to find a payphone. There's a man in a pressed black suit holding the receiver to his ear, but he's not talking. When he catches Blaine looking his way, he hastily turns his back. Cold dread blooms in his stomach. This is exactly why he told Santana to wait to go to Marathon.

They were being followed.

He hastily turns and skips down the sidewalk ledge. He guesses the man in the black suit corresponds to the black sedan parked in front of the convenience store. As he passes, he holds out his palm flat and manipulates the molecular structure of the tires. Two long gashes appear in the driver's side tires, and they deflate with a hiss.

Blaine jumps into the Corvette and pulls away while looking in the rearview mirror. The man in the black suit throws up his arms and kicks the tire rim.

"Blaine?"

"What?"

"I asked if you're hungry. Didn't you hear me?"

"Sorry. No, I didn't. But, yeah, I'm famished. I'm a teenage boy, right?"

Blaine considers sharing his discovery with Kurt, but decides against it. He already knows they have the FBI watching them, but the man can't follow now, so there's no point upsetting or worrying him. He stays quiet while Kurt unwraps a sandwich and listens to a rundown of the nutritional reasons this one is acceptable, although not ideal.

"Are you okay, Blaine?"

"Hmm. What?"

"You seem distracted."

"What makes you say that?"

"You said you were famished, but you've been holding that turkey sandwich far away from your mouth for five minutes."

Blaine shakes his head to clear it and forces out an uncomfortable laugh that falls flat.

"I'm fine. Really. Just distracted by Santana and everything. You know what would get my mind off it?" He pauses, but Kurt won't guess because he has a mouthful of sandwich. "Okay, fine. I'll just tell you. Ask you, actually. Will you sing?"

Kurt stops chewing, obviously caught off guard. Blaine takes his eyes off the road to glance over. He knows his cheeks are warm, but he hopes the nighttime hides it as he explains.

"When Vocal Adrenaline performed at assemblies, I used to wish so hard you had a solo. The times you didn't, I still listened for your voice. I …" His embarrassment bubbles up as laughter. "I just kind of really want to hear you sing."

Kurt can't speak for several seconds. His breath sticks in his chest, and his head buzzes with words unspoken. At last, he catches up to the moment, and the corners of his mouth twitch up into a grin around the surprised 'O.'

"Well, when my audience is that captive …. Let's see what's on the radio."

The first station not garbled by static plays the opening notes of _Blackbird_.

o

The Crashdown stays busy until almost closing time, and Burt never makes it back into his office to do payroll, so he'll be up late tonight doing that and worrying about where Kurt ran off to with his secret boyfriend. He considers calling, but the extended rush keeps him too busy. He doesn't have a moment to stop and debate the issue until almost ten o'clock.

"Would you look at this? I don't think I've seen you out front since your dad ran this place."

Burt looks over his shoulder at Sue who leans against the counter with her annoying, lopsided smirk while he brings two plates down from the expediter's shelf and slides it over to Ron to take over to his table.

"Where's sweet Porcelain tonight? He always makes my sodas just right so I still have room in the cup to mix in my protein powder."

Burt huffs. "He's out being a teenager."

"Don't be silly. Porcelain is an eighty-year-old woman with a knitting habit and too many cats."

"Yeah, well, tonight he's a teenage boy who lied to his father to go out with another teenage boy and get up to God knows what. No, actually, I know exactly what. I was a teenage boy, but I had teenage girls to keep me somewhat in line."

Sue nods slowly. "You know I've never liked you, but Elizabeth is another story. She was too good for you."

"You got that right," Burt agrees.

The Sheriff slides onto a stool at the counter and drops her smug grin. Way, way back when Sue had been a gawky, doe-eyed theater nerd and all around stunning alto leading lady, Elizabeth had been her soprano counterpart. They'd never been close friends, but drama had been like one big, dysfunctional family.

"You don't think Kurt is really in trouble? I mean, he might be hanging out with some sketchy kids lately, but he's a Hummel. We both know he's too stubborn to ever play follow-the-leader."

"What do you mean 'sketchy' kids? I've noticed he has some new friends, but they look all right, and it's good for him to open up to new people after that mess that happened last year with all his show choir friends."

Sue lifts an eyebrow. "I suppose they do 'look all right.' I'll just say this: I wouldn't let my Becky hang around with Blaine Anderson and Santana Lopez." Burt's brow knits in concern. "Is that who he's with tonight, Blaine Anderson?"

"I don't know. I think so. I've never been introduced to the kid, but I think it's him."

"That doesn't sound like Kurt not to introduce you to his friends."

"It's not." Burt's frown deepens. "I just don't know what's going on with him anymore. He's stopped talking to me, and now when he does talk, he's lying."

"I'll tell you what, as a favor from one single parent to another, I'll find out what's going on. If he's in trouble, I'll deal with that. If it's boys being boys, I'll leave you to handle that."

Sue leaves the Crashdown with her soda in a to-go cup and permission to track down Blaine Anderson – via Kurt Hummel, but still – by any means necessary. Not that that idiot Burt Hummel realizes her real intention isn't to bring home his baby boy, but to find out what those kids have been hiding. She leaves the plastic cup in the console and reaches for her phone as she turns the ignition.

"Yeah, this is Sheriff Sue Sylvester in Roswell, New Mexico." She rattles off her authorization code. "I need a trace on a cell phone registered to Burt Hummel."

She gives the number and waits for the GPS to pinpoint his location. The answer she receives startles her. 285 South, just outside of Pecos, Texas. What in the hell are Porcelain and Frodo doing in Texas?

Texas.

Her smiles slips as all the pieces fall into place. The shooting in the Crashdown … the photographs she showed Kurt … the missing key she knows the FBI didn't take … her parents' safehouse in Marathon, Texas. She'd torn that house apart searching, but never found a lock that fit the key. But maybe she'd missed something. Or maybe they'd come to the same incorrect conclusion.

Either way, this is more than boys being boys. She flips on the siren and peels out of her parking spot towards the 285 on ramp.

o

"No, no, no. Come on. It's time for a duet."

Blaine shakes his head quickly. "No, I don't sing."

"Because you can't or because it draws attention?" Kurt asks shrewdly.

"You know which."

"I do, which is why I think you should sing now. This car is a safe place." He cringes. "Oh, wow. Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I meant, anywhere it's just you and me is a safe place. I'm dying to hear what your singing voice sounds like. Seriously, I have to know if it matches this 1960's popstar exterior or if we're talking about Sunshine Corazon levels of dichotomy here."

"Okay, okay," Blaine laughs. "I'll sing for you, but I don't sound anything like Sunshine."

While Kurt turns the radio dial searching for something other than commercials, Blaine eases on the brake and shifts into lowers gears as traffic slows to a standstill. Soon enough, they're idling on the highway with a crowd of bright red taillights in front of the car. Kurt stops on a radio announcement.

"If you're anywhere near the 285/385 spilt around Fort Stockton tonight, you'll want to find an alternate route. There are reports of a jackknifed semi on the highway. Traffic is at a standstill for miles."

Blaine groans and drops his head back on the seat. "Great. They probably got through already, and Santana is going to break into the Sylvester's house in the middle of the night."

Kurt chews on his bottom lip and tries to disappear into the seat. He started all of this when he took Santana to the UFO Center without thinking, and now Blaine is upset and worried because of his rash actions. Santana will be found with the key they stole, and because Tina is with her, they'll all be implicated in breaking and entering and stealing from the police station. His stupidity puts them all at risk, but Blaine and Santana have so much more to lose than squeaky clean records.

"Blaine, I'm sorry about everything. I'm sorry about how my stupid, boring life could put you in so much danger. It all started that day. None of this would have ever happened if you'd let me … go. And I've just been making everything worse since then by not destroying my uniform and sticking my nose where it doesn't belong and not listening to you."

Blaine twists in his seat, the leather creaking and popping against his movements as he faces Kurt.

"First of all, nothing about you is stupid or boring. You're the most interesting kid in all of New Mexico. And secondly, it feels like my life didn't even start until I told you the truth that day. I don't regret opening up to you, Kurt. Nothing could ever make me regret being closer to you."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Kurt breaths. "Blaine … I know that we agreed not to feel a certain way about each other. But I was wondering … do you still think that's a good idea?"

The air crackles with electricity, and their darting eyes dance together towards lips and back up. Blaine leans forward, and Kurt's eyes flutter with how badly he wants to feel those Cupid's bow lips against his own. But Blaine moves to the side and reaches up. Kurt's eyes travel up his arm to where his hand glows faintly and a small tear in the soft top seals together again.

Kurt turns back to face Blaine, who is so close now he can smell the mixture of sugar and spice on his breath from the Tabasco sauce on candy he had after dinner. Their eyes linger, dance again, and Kurt feels his insides turning to jelly.

"Just wanted to keep you warm," Blaine whispers.

He eased back into his seat and leaves Kurt to gaze across the car with hearts in his eyes and too little air in the lungs. He feels like he's spinning in the rush of emotions sweeping through him, and he loves it. He loves the way Blaine makes him feel fuzzy and dizzy and twisty. They're not a couple. Except that they are. Totally and completely. It might take Blaine some time to realize it, but one day he'll wake up and come to Kurt with a speech and kiss him senseless.

Kurt turns to gaze out the window and sigh wistfully to himself, but the sigh dies on his lips. He sits up straighter and reaches out for Blaine without turning away from what he sees on the side of the road. His hand touches Blaine's, and instinctively Blaine's fingers tighten around his.

"That's Tina's car. It looks really banged up. Oh my God. What if they're hurt?"

Traffic doesn't show any signs of moving anytime soon, so they turn off the Corvette and go to examine Tina's abandoned car. The wing mirror has snapped off, scratches expose the gunmetal gray frame beneath the red paint, and the fender is bent, but otherwise nothing seems badly damaged. There's no blood or broken glass.

"They probably went over there." Blaine motions at a neon sign for the Desert Rose Motel. "Come on. Let's go find them."

It only takes a brief walk by the front office to discover which room Santana and Tina are staying in. All the keys hang on a pegboard behind the desk, and only one peg is empty. Blaine holds his hand over the lock and it pops free from the inside.

"Stay behind me. Just in case," he whispers.

Kurt has no problem falling back and letting the boy with alien powers go first. Blaine flips on the light. It doesn't hurt the boys' eyes because they're accustomed to headlights, neon signs, and overhead florescent lights. The girls in the bed, however, shout and flail around. Tina falls out of bed onto the threadbare gold carpet.

Gold carpet?

Kurt looks around with a distasteful expression.

"It's like the porno version of _Aladdin_."

"Exactly what Santana said," Tina murmurs, her voice rough from sleep.

Kurt helps her up off the floor and onto the bed where she sits rubbing her eyes. While they have their sedate reunion, Blaine and Santana round on each other. They're both furious and not bothering to hide it.

"So I guess you're here to be supportive as usual?" Santana spits.

"No, I'm here to clean up your mess a usual. What were you thinking?" Blaine yells.

Kurt feels Tina startle in his arms. He's never heard Blaine yell either, but he'd known it was coming.

"I'm thinking that I'm not waiting around for answers to come to me. You like Roswell and your neat housing addition suburbia life, but here's a newsflash, Blaine: _it's not real_. You're lying to your parents, we have an FBI tail, and one day soon we're going to have to leave Roswell and everyone in it behind.

"But the really rich thing about all of this is that you want to find out what's in the dome. It's just as important to you as it is to me. I can see it in your eyes. But you're too scared to make a move, so you let me do it and then barge in here with your holier than thou anger and expect me to take it. You know what, Blaine? I'm done. It's time for you to man up and own your opinions. I'm going to the dome, but you're not coming with me unless you admit you want to."

Blaine turns in on himself with lips pursed, arms crossed, and head shaking. At last, he turns towards Kurt and Tina.

"We'll take you home first. This could be dangerous, and it's breaking more laws."

"No."

Kurt stands up, and Tina follows. They don't look angry, but everything about their body language says they're resolved. They won't be pushed out of this because of their DNA.

"No more exclusion. You trusted us with your secret, and we've kept your confidence. If you hide things from us now, if you cut us out of important things, we won't be able to keep it up. How can we protect you – protect ourselves – if we don't know everything? We know you don't want to put us in danger, but that ship has sailed. You have to realize that there are four of us in this together now."

Blaine and Santana share a long look. Santana nods first, and then Blaine.

"Let's go get Tina's car fixed up and get back on the road. We still have a long drive to Marathon, and it's almost sunrise."

* * *

**THE DOME**

The first order of business before going to the dome is to repair Tina's car. The jackknifed semi has been cleared, and traffic is sparse again, so Blaine and Santana can use their powers. She finds the wing mirror in a deep ditch and holds her hand over the snapped joint until it molds together again. Then she runs her hands along the fender and side, popping out dents and covering scratches in a fresh coat of paint.

"Why didn't you just do this last night?" Tina wonders.

"I'm not as … advanced as Blaine," Santana mumbles.

Blaine bends over the exposed engine Santana fried with her powers and runs his hand over the places he thinks might be a problem. Kurt hovers, trying not to leer and failing miserably. He can't help it, though. He's picturing Blaine with grease smears on his face and in unfashionable coveralls that are nonetheless extremely fetching on him.

"Who knew greasemonkeys could be sexy?" he asks breathlessly.

Tina snickers into her hand, and Santana throws him a sharp look. He doesn't think Blaine hears, but then he doesn't see the proud, amused smile on Blaine's lip. If only his dad knew all those Sundays working on the car would help him attract beautiful gay boys ….

Blaine has the car repaired in due time, and they're back on the road with the sky changing into a rainbow of blues, oranges, and pinks as only a desert sunrise can create. Since Tina and Santana have slept, they sit in the front seats. Kurt and Blaine occupy the back and lose their battle to stay awake in less than a quarter hour. Blaine falls in his sleep onto Kurt's shoulder, and Kurt's head rests on top of his.

They drive another few hours to Marathon with the girls in the front being respectfully quiet. They have things to talk about that they'd put off last night because they'd been too tired, but they put it off again because they have more pressing matters at hand and exhausted friends in the back.

When they near the end of the directions Santana had printed off of Google Maps, Tina reaches into the backseat and shakes Kurt's knee. He's startled, but not unhappy, to find Blaine dozing on his chest. He gently nudges the other boy awake. Blaine only wants to snuggle further into his chest, sending a thrill through Kurt, but he has to wake up.

"We're almost at the dome."

That rouses Blaine, and he jumps back to his side of the car when he realizes he's been sleeping on Kurt. His hair is a little mussed, and Kurt pats it down with his fingers, leaving a tint of pink on Blaine's cheeks.

"We're here," Santana says.

She pulls off the narrow highway onto a flat stretch of dust. There doesn't seem to be a road or driveway, just a swatch of rust-colored desert in front of a high, rocky ridge. The dome is nestled in a gentle curve of rock. The white triangular panels that make up the roof catch the morning light. It looks exactly like Santana's colorful painting.

They approach the dome cautiously. Santana pulls the car in a full circle so the fender points to the road in case they need to make a quick getaway. There's no sign of life anywhere. No sounds, no people, no pets. Santana removes the key from her pocket.

"We ready for this?"

The other three nod solemnly as she slips the key into the lock and wait with baited breath. It doesn't turn.

For a minute, Santana stares dumbly at the bright red door with the stupid diamond shaped window. Then she glances over her shoulder at Blaine and shakes her head slightly. He slides past Tina and holds his hand over the lock.

"We've come this far. We're not going back now."

The lock pops under his glowing hand. He twists the handle and lets the door swing free.

The inside of the dome is a wreck. What once used to be an open, decorated living room now looks like the aftermath of a tornado. The overturned sofa leaks stuffing onto the dirty floor, plaster sags from the wall revealing support beams, and splintered furniture litters the room. The rest of the house fares no better. They make their way cautiously through the mess, but come across no doors with locks. The geodesic dome purposefully has an open floor plan and no locked doors. They reach the end of the line in a second living room with a filthy hearth set in a brick frame.

Kurt shakes his head. "Who has a fireplace in Texas?"

"Yeah, the interior design is not our biggest problem," Santana snaps. "Maybe we should focus less on 1970's interior decorating faux pas and more on the fact that _this key opens nothing_."

"There must be something here," Blaine says. "The key led you here for a reason."

Tina crosses the room to stand closer to Santana. She takes the other girl's hand and says softly, earnestly, "Hold it again."

She hesitates, but takes the key out of her pocket, squeezes it until the ridges bite into her skin, and concentrates. Nothing. She shakes her head ruefully, but Tina fixes her with an encouraging look and nod. Their fingers slide together, and Tina tightens her grip.

_A woman with flaming red hair pulls a brick loose to reveal a keyhole. She turns the lock, and a trapdoor in the floor opens up._

Santana reels backwards, staring wide-eyed at Tina. She doesn't know how Tina got her to see a vision, but she did somehow. She'll dwell on it later. For now, they have to see to what they came here to do.

"You saw something," Blaine says.

"I found the lock."

She claws out the loose brick and brushes her fingers over the cobwebs and dust that have collected over the keyhole since the last time the red-headed woman opened the trap door. Just like in her vision, when the locks turns, part of the floor raises up. Santana pulls up on the edges. Beneath the door is a set of narrow wooden stairs descending into a dark basement. She glances over at Blaine. A ball of glowing light is already resting in his palm.

"Let's find out why we were led here."

Santana leads the way down into the basement with Tina and Kurt behind her and Blaine bringing up the rear. Their footsteps echo loudly against the unfinished rough rock walls of the basement. A hanging metal string smacks Santana in the forehead, and he pulls it down. An old incandescent light bulb covered in dust sputters to life, casting pale, uneven light over the basement. Santana pauses at the end of the stairs, staring at the rooms she's been lead to.

"Is this …"

"I think it is," Blaine replies.

The archives of alien hunters.

A chill passes up Blaine's spine, but he suppresses his instincts to run away from this place. The owners haven't been here for years – decades, maybe – and everything they've ever wanted to know about themselves could be in this room.

They spread out, each searching through some part of the room. It looks as if someone left here in a hurry. Papers with notes on a sighting in Iowa have been left out on the table, maps with pins still hang on the walls, and most telling of all, a coffee cup with red lipstick stains sits on the desk. The aged papers rustle like autumn leaves in the wind as they search through the piles, but quiets suddenly with the carrying sound overhead.

A footstep.

o

Sue steps over the threshold cautiously with a disdainful frown pulling at her mouth. She hasn't been back to this house in years. The last time, she'd only come to search for the lock that fit in the key found on her mother's body. She had torn this place apart trying to find it, but had conceded at last that it must belong to another one of her parents' safe houses that she didn't know about.

She hates this place with a burning passion. It reminds her so much of Jeanie. The geodesic dome fascinated her big sister. Sue has never been able to look at one without feeling the terrible void left in the place Jean used to fill. There's less goodness in the world without her sister. She loves Becky beyond life itself, but a daughter can't take the place of a sister.

The kids are definitely here, though. The amateurs left the car parked in plain view by the road. She doesn't know how they found out about this house or what they think is here, but she's going to find out. And then she's going arrest them for breaking into her office and stealing that key.

She searches the house by the standard procedure, but she comes up empty. They have to be here somewhere, except they're not. As she makes her way into the final room – a converted den with an indulgent fireplace they'd never used – she begins to wonder if they think the lock is outside somewhere. It would have been like her parents to take their paranoia to the next level by keeping their notes in a safe built to resemble a cave in the rocks outside.

She'll check around the premises too, but first the den.

o

The Sheriff never sees it coming. Sue Sylvester is knocked out on the ground in fifteen seconds flat without ever getting a glimpse of her attacker's face.

Holly Holliday is just that good.

o

Down in the basement, the four teenagers stand frozen in place staring at the ceiling beams as the footsteps of an unknown follower echo through the wood. Santana snaps out of it first. She hastily gathers up papers from the desk.

"Ssh! What are you doing?" Kurt hisses. "They'll hear us."

"They already know we're down here," she whispers back. "I, for one, am going to find out whatever I can with the few seconds we have."

Her words knock some sense into her friends, and they quickly go back to examining whatever they have in their hands. Except for Tina, who ventures to the far side of the basement where there are no papers or maps or artifacts. She pulls aside a sheet of dirty plastic tarp and waves frantically at her friends.

"Another way out," she says.

Kurt finds a cardboard box that looks like generations of mice have used as their home, but whatever, it'll carry papers too. Santana dumps papers into it while Kurt hurriedly pulls maps from the wall. Blaine joins them, throwing anything he can reach into the box. He pauses, though, when a necklace hanging from a pin on a corkboard catches his eyes. It's a dark brown pendant with a white symbol in the center that is strangely familiar to him.

Overhead, something hits the ground hard.

"Let's go!" Tina hisses.

Kurt's hand closes around his wrist and tugs Blaine away. He snatches the necklace from the peg and slips it into his pocket. Up ahead, Tina disappears into the gaping mouth of an unfinished air shaft. Santana follows with the box cradled in her arms. Kurt holds open the tarp and ushers Blaine through.

The stench of stale air and dead things clog the air, and bile rises up in Kurt's throat. He gags, but fights down his churning stomach. He can hear footsteps on the wooden stairs. Not just any footsteps, though. He catches the distinct click-clack of high heels. His hands reach out in the darkness and connect with Blaine's shoulders. He pushes the other boy to run faster.

"Ms. Holliday," he whispers.

The darkness quickly turns to pale light up ahead as the air shaft becomes a sharp-angled ramp up to ground level. Tina is already out, reaching for the box so Santana can clamber up. The girls pull Blaine the last few feet out of the tunnel, and then he heaves Kurt out of the shaft. They run for the car as if their lives depend on it. And maybe they do.

Santana tosses the box to Blaine so she can pull out the keys and turn the ignition. He fumbles the box, but Kurt catches the edge of it, and they dive into the backseat. Tina hasn't even closed the passenger door before Santana is peeling out and swerving onto the lonely highway.

They're free.

Blaine peers out the back window just in time to catch a head of long blonde hair appearing from the air shaft.

Sort of.


	4. Coming Out From Behind The Tree

**ROSWELL**

**PART FOUR**

**COMING OUT FROM BEHIND THE TREE**

_October 29_

_It's frightening how the world changes sometimes. How the streets you've walked your whole life suddenly seem darker, colder; how the silence isn't so quiet anymore; how eyes you've barely noticed now look only at you; how the walk home at night is no longer a routine but a victory. And then you begin to wonder: maybe it's not the world that's changed. Maybe it's just you._

* * *

**MEET THE PARENTS**

Kurt and Blaine and Santana and Tina part ways at the Desert Rose Motel where they left the Corvette. The sun is well above the horizon.

Tina's greatest worry is that she won't have the car back in time. Her parents leave for work around nine, and even Santana's reckless driving will barely get them back to Roswell in time. Her only hope is to park the car in the driveway and leave before her parents notice.

They switch places on the corner. They discussed it on the drive home, and if Tina's parents do notice the car is missing, it would be better if they don't know who else is involved in what is, technically, grand theft auto.

"I'll meet you back here, and we'll walk to school from there," Tina says.

"That's a long walk."

"Better than me getting grounded and interrogated about my whereabouts last night."

Santana can't argue with that. Tina speeds down the block, whips the car into the driveway, and throws it into park. She's just turned to run back to the corner when she hears the telltale grinding of the garage door gears. She cringes, puts on her best innocent face, and faces her parents with a smile. Maybe they'll forget school starts at eight.

"Tina!" they call jovially.

It totally throws her off when they wrap her up in a double hug and press kisses to her cheeks and temples. They're like a strange Oreo with her parents in their khaki work gear and she in her typical black clothes. Peter and Andrea Cohen-Chang are easily the coolest parents to ever live, but they bewilder Tina on a regular basis.

"Oh, honey," Andrea says sweetly, "it's so good to know that our only child in this world wasn't gagged, shoved into the trunk of a car, driven out into the desert, and cut up into little pieces after being brutally beaten and raped."

Tina goes absolutely still in her parents' arms. They're not done torturing her yet, though.

"I only wish I had known that our baby girl voluntarily stayed out all night and knowingly let us worry over her safety, then I wouldn't have spent a sleepless night agonizing over all the angry thoughts I had when she still wasn't home two hours after curfew," Peter says.

"So … tell me," Andrea begins, with a nudge and a wink, "who's the lucky boy? I noticed you've been spending more time with Blaine Anderson."

Normally, Tina would laugh, because how can anyone who has seen Blaine and Kurt together possibly think either one of them is straight? But this is about the worst kind of lecture she could have received.

"What? I wouldn't stay out all night with a boy! I was with a girl."

Her parents' fake good humor turns into something else. They seem almost genuinely happy. They let her go finally, which she's grateful for, but she's more confused now then when they hadn't led by yelling at her.

"Honey, we're so proud of you for telling us. We've been wondering when you would feel comfortable enough."

"Although I'm slightly incredulous that this came up right before we ground you until you leave for college," Peter begins, "I'm also incredibly happy that you trust us enough to tell us about this."

Her mom flaps a hand at him. "So who's the lucky girl?"

Tina gapes at her parents. Of all the possible ways for this morning to go, this is one she honestly had not considered. It takes her several minutes to figure out how to even begin. Not to mention she's uncertain about whether she needs to correct their assumption or not and if she wants to question why and for how long they've assumed she's gay.

"It's not …. That's not …. I can't really …."

"Santana," her parents say in unison.

For a minute, Tina thinks Santana has appeared at the end of their driveway, but then she realizes they're guessing who she spent last night with. Her brow furrows.

"Oh, honey. No one who's seen you and Santana together could possibly think anything else," Andrea says.

Tina's mouth works, but no sound comes out. No way she and Santana are as smitten as Kurt and Blaine. No one in the entire world is as smitten as those two are. But she and Santana did kiss first, so maybe there's more than one way to see how much two people are drawn to each other.

"Listen, Tina," her dad says seriously now. "We hope you know that we'll always love and accept you for exactly who you are. Just remember that we live where we live, and it's going to be different than when you dated Artie, but you can always come to us if you're having problems. Okay?"

"Okay," Tina says automatically. This whole conversation has thrown her. "Uh … Am I grounded until I leave for college?"

Peter laughs good-naturedly. "Of course you are. We don't care who you love, sweetheart. We believe in equality in this house, which means your punishment is_ equally_ as severe as it would have been if you were out with a boy."

The girl nods sheepishly. She feels stupid, but she's tearing up. "I'm really sorry that I lied to you and stole your car. I wouldn't have done it unless it was really, _really_ important. I know that doesn't excuse anything, but … I just want you to know that I did it to help out some of my friends."

"We're not other parents, Tina. We've always given you a lot of freedom, but you have to talk to us and tell us what's going on or you'll lose our trust and your freedom. If you'd just told us someone was in trouble, we wouldn't have had to ground you."

Tina has gone weepy and nods through her tears. Her parents pull her into another hug to console her.

"So I guess I'm pretty much living in my room until next August," she sighs.

"What?" Peter cries with mock exasperation. "We ground our anti-social daughter and she thinks she's allowed to stay in her room for months at a time! Sweetheart, you're going to be in so many clubs and extracurriculars you'll beg for mercy in a week! Now get inside and get ready for school. Your mother and I are marching you into Figgins' office and writing your name on a dozen sign-up sheets."

"I'll get your King of the Asian Vampires costume ready," Andrea remarks teasingly.

Tina goes still again. So they knew how she got out of gym class too. She thinks she kind of has the most awesome parents ever. But she also knows they're not really done with this conversation. Curfew will be sooner, check-ins more frequent, and no more sleepovers with Santana. She's smart enough to know an easy sentence when she gets one. She hopes Blaine, Kurt, and Santana get off this easy too.

o

Blaine and Kurt return to Roswell much later than Santana and Tina. Blaine isn't willing to push the speedometer past one hundred, and neither he nor Kurt are worried about their parents finding out. Blaine will tell his parents he left early to do some studying, and Kurt hadn't been expected home at all last night. They don't stretch out the drive because they're both exhausted, but neither do they hurry back to Roswell.

"Want me to drop you off at home?" Blaine asks.

Kurt shakes his head. "I can't go home until after school. My dad works right downstairs, remember?"

"Oh. Right. So I guess you're hanging out with me until three o'clock?"

"As long as you're napping. I can't believe I'm still on my feet."

"Perfect plan." Blaine punctuates the sentence with a yawn.

They kick off their shoes once they're in Blaine's room, and Kurt struggles out of his shirt, but settles for sleeping in his jeans and undershirt. Blaine has just enough foresight to set the alarm on his phone before his head hits the pillow, and he's asleep. Kurt's too tired to care about the potential awkwardness of sharing a bed with his crush. All he can think is _bed, pillow, sleep, good_.

There is nothing sexy about their dead sleep, but that doesn't stop Kurt from blushing to his ears and acting guilty when they're discovered three hours later.

"Blaine, honey? I saw your car in the driveway. Are you feeling … _oh!_"

Blaine wakes a second too late to pull away from Kurt, who he'd snuggled up against during their nap. Diane Anderson's eyes widen dramatically when she peers into the bedroom and finds her son in bed with another boy. Not even in bed, though. They're on top of the covers and fully clothed except for their shoes and Kurt's extra layers.

"'S gon on?" Kurt slurs.

Kurt twists and stretches, surprised by the warm body wrapped around him and startled by the blonde woman standing over the bed. Her shock quickly transforms into discomfort. She glances away and wrings her hands, and so he quickly wriggles out of Blaine's grip and off the bed.

Blaine gets up quickly too, arranging his wrinkled clothes and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. He tries to get his mother to look at him, but her eyes are fixed on Kurt's uniform shirt in his hands. He hadn't had time to change into anything else before they left the Crashdown yesterday.

The longer Kurt remains in the room, the tenser the situation becomes. He looks pained to leave Blaine to deal with the situation on his own, but staying obviously isn't helping anything. He slips between mother and son and out the door. Diane says nothing until they hear the front door click shut. It sounds too loud in the quiet house.

"Mom, I can explain."

She holds up her hand and turns her face away, but she's clearly crying. Blaine shifts his weight around, and his arms come up to wrap around his torso. His lips are a thin line, and his eyes fill with tears he won't let fall. All because he knows what's coming.

"Blaine, I have tried so hard to teach you that these urges you feel are wrong. Pastor Warren gave you all those verses. Did you even read them?"

Blaine wants to argue the contextual points of the verses. He wants to scream at her that her Bible doesn't apply to him because he's not human and that his home planet isn't part of her God's creation. It's not mentioned in Genesis. He's checked. But the last fight they had only ended up getting his father and the fucking car involved, so he doesn't say anything about the verses.

"I gave you plenty of space to figure out how to love girls, but …" She gestures to the bed. "Now you're skipping school for sex with boys like … _that_?"

"It's not like that. Kurt is just my friend. And what is that even supposed to mean anyway? Like what? Kurt is the most loyal, moral person I know."

His mom snorts derisively. "There is nothing moral about the gays. That's why I've been trying to convince you to make the right choice."

Blaine sits down heavily on the end of his bed and drops his head into his hands. He can feel the tears coming, and he doesn't want her to see. She'll tell him how much she loves him and cares about his soul, as if the spirit she's crushing isn't important at all.

"I will not have this behavior in my house. Swishy boys like him are a bad influence, Blaine. He'll bring out the worst parts of you. You're not to go to the Crashdown or spend time with him in school anymore."

"You can't do that! You can't keep Kurt from me." His voice breaks, and the tears begin to fall. "He's the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Diane regards her son coldly. "I should think the day your father and I came to get you from the orphanage is the best thing that's ever happened to you."

Blaine looks up at his mother with tearstained cheeks and accusation in his eyes.

"I should too."

o

Becky turns with a giant spoon loaded up with Fruit Loops in her mouth when the door opens, and Sue stares at the unexpectedly comical sight. After a moment, Becky resumes chewing, and Sue takes a seat on the couch next to her daughter. A new showcase is starting on _The Price is Right_.

"So what are you doing home from school?" Sue asks lightly.

Becky swallows thickly. "You were gone all night."

"You know sometimes I have to work at night. You've always been able to get ready for school and get on the bus without me."

Becky has the numbers of two nursing students programmed into her phone in case she needs someone when Sue can't be around. Jackie and Robbie have a lot going on with school and personal lives, but they always come when Becky needs someone. Not only is that part of what she pays them for, but they love and care about Becky.

"You didn't call last night, and I was worried, so I called Deputy Sandy, and he told me you were coming back from Texas. Why did you go to Texas last night?"

Sue rubs the back of her head where she has a painful goose egg and curses herself silently. She'd been so caught up in following those kids she hadn't phoned home often enough to check up on Becky.

"I am sorry about that, Becky. I was chasing a lead, and then someone gave me a really bad headache this morning. But none of that is more important than you."

A smile splits Becky's face that only makes Sue feel even guiltier for leaving her alone to worry. She kisses the top of Becky's head lightly.

"I love you."

"I love you too, Mom."

Sue picks up the remote control and turns up the volume. "I'll bet you one trip to the ice cream stand that I can win this showcase."

"You're on!"

o

The Cohen-Changs seriously freak Santana the fuck out. She's grateful to get away from their unique brand of crazy. Cool parents aren't supposed to exist outside of teen movies like _Easy A_. She spends all day at school exhausted and trying to figure out why Mr. and Mrs. Cohen-Chang bother her so much, but she can't pinpoint it until she gets home after school.

"I don't want a lecture."

It takes Helen a few minutes to tear her eyes away from _Antique Roadshow_. "What'd you do this time?"

Santana shouldn't be surprised her foster mother didn't realize she was missing, but after her morning with the Cohen-Changs, she kind of hoped someone would scold her for breaking the rules. But this house doesn't have any rules to break, and Santana won't get yelled at unless she interrupts television programs too often.

"Nevermind."

o

Kurt wakes up refreshed, but very hungry after a powernap. Good idea or not, he'd come home after leaving Blaine's house and risked being found out. He hadn't been, however, and he'd had another solid three hours of sleep. He wolfs down a turkey-on-wheat and then takes a long shower. He's grateful for both decisions when he comes downstairs to the living room.

Burt sits on the couch. He's staring at the television, but Kurt can tell he's not really watching. It clicks off the second Kurt walks into the room, and he knows something big and bad is about to happen.

"Have a seat."

His dad sounds furious. Somehow, he's been caught. Kurt tiptoes over to the armchair as if light footsteps can stop the worst from happening. His dad takes off his baseball cap and runs a hand over his head.

"So tell me about last night."

Kurt's stomach drops, because he's been given nothing to work with. He doesn't know what his dad knows and what he doesn't, and getting caught in a lie to cover up a lie is too much. He shifts around in his chair, crosses and uncrosses his legs, and puts on his best approximation of cold and distant that he uses as school, but he can never quite muster it for his dad.

"Dad, I'm really so –"

"I didn't ask for an apology. I asked for an explanation."

"I wasn't working on a school assignment. A friend had something big – really big – happen, and I went to help. Please don't ask me what. It's private, Dad. I know you don't want to hear that, but it's not my place to share."

Burt nods slowly. "That sounds like you, Kurt, and I really wish I could believe it, but you lied to my face. You looked me in the eye, and you lied to me."

"Dad –"

"And you've been keeping other stuff from me too. Like this boy who always comes into the Crashdown who you ran off with last night. After everything we've talked about, Kurt – about you wanting to hold hands and kiss the person you love – you have a boyfriend and you don't tell me about it? You know, that hurts, kid."

"No, Dad. It's not like that. Blaine isn't my boyfriend. He's just a really good friend."

Burt scrubs his palms over his face. "According to the Sheriff, that might not be the best idea. She came in after you ran off and we got to talking. It sounded to me like she doesn't think much of this Blaine kid. I don't know how I feel about you spending time with him."

"Dad, you don't even know him!"

"Exactly! You've never kept your friends from me, Kurt. What am I supposed to think when one of them comes in the diner almost every day, but I don't even get a passing introduction? And you've been skipping Friday night dinners for weeks now. You think I don't see whose car you get into when you leave?"

Kurt's flustered by the way the argument is going. He's not being lectured for lying and staying out at all – not yet anyway – but for so much more that he can't possibly explain to his dad. He can't share everything that's been happening in his life anymore because other people's lives depend on his secrecy.

"Fine. I'll introduce you, Dad. I'm not hiding Blaine from you. It's just that what we have is … complicated."

Burt frowns and studies his son for a long moment. "He's in the closet?"

"Dad," Kurt says warningly, and Burt raises his palms. "I'm really, really sorry that I lied to you, Dad. I don't like lying to you. I just … I didn't think you'd let me go with Blaine last night, and I really needed to clean up a mess I'd created."

Burt sighs deeply. "I wish you'd talk to me like you used to, Kurt. I don't like being the bad guy here, but you're not giving me much choice."

Kurt purses his lips and exhales sharply through his nose. "I wish I could tell you everything, but so many of the things going on aren't mine to tell."

"All right," his dad says sadly. "If that's the way you want it, that's how we'll play it. The Sheriff told me where you went –"

"What? Sheriff Sylvester followed us?"

"I gave her permission to track you down. She said you went to Texas."

Kurt feels cold dread bloom in his stomach. The footsteps overhead had been the Sheriff. Of course she knew where they were headed because her parents owned the dome, which meant she also knew who broke into her office.

"I don't even know what kind of punishment you should get for a stunt like this. You definitely aren't getting your car for another six months."

Kurt knows better than to protest. His punishment is actually pretty light: six additional months without something he doesn't have anyway. More troubling to him is that his dad knows he's hiding something big that he won't share. He's hurting his dad, and he has to keep doing it.

* * *

**DOUBLE TALK**

On Tuesday morning the seniors are released from their classes and corralled in the auditorium. This happens every October, so no one is surprised that the time has come for them to sit through an hour-long motivational speech about college/career plans. Kurt and Santana have first hour together, so they end up sitting next to each other when they can't find Blaine or Tina in the audience.

"What the hell?"

Kurt turns towards Santana, and she gestures to the stage. Instead of their guidance counselor standing at the podium trying to call for quiet, Ms. Holliday strides across the stage on her impossibly high heels.

"Thank you all for coming today. As you might have heard, Mr. Costello's alopecia is acting up again, so I've been called in to be your substitute guidance counselor this week. For those of you who don't know me …."

Kurt is horrified. One, he's fairly sure alopecia is hair loss and Mr. Costello finished going bald several years ago. Two, he's also fairly sure there is no such thing as a substitute guidance counselor. Three, it has just occurred to him that maybe their teachers aren't out for innocent reasons. Maybe they're dropping like flies because the FBI is arranging it that way.

Up on the stage, Ms. Holliday continues. A photo slideshow of multicultural students laughing, studying intensely, and working various jobs plays behind her.

"What will the future bring? There are so many opportunities out there for young people today, and it's my job this week to prepare you for all the great things you can do with your lives. You can't become something unless you can dream it first."

"Let's make it easy for her," Kurt murmurs. He points to The Mack. "Breadstix."

Santana motions to Azimio Adams. "Gas World."

Dave Karofsky. "Rendering plant."

Noah Puckerman. "Prison."

Kurt claps a hand over his mouth, which causes Santana to snicker at her own snarky wit too.

"Over the next few days, I'll be calling each of you into my office to discuss your college or career plans," Ms. Holliday says.

That wipes the smiles off their faces.

After assembly dismisses with the bell, they fight their way through the crowd to where Blaine said he would be waiting for them if he didn't find them in the auditorium. Tina arrives a few minutes later looking equally concerned.

"She wants one-on-one meetings with us now?" Tina asks worriedly.

"This is bullshit. No way," Santana says.

"We have to or it'll look suspicious," Blaine says. "We just have to keep our cool and don't tell her anything she couldn't find out from our student records anyway."

"Let us know how that goes." Blaine looks confused, so Kurt enlightens him. "You'd think someone with a last name starting with A would know that these things are always done alphabetically."

o

Kurt is correct, and Ms. Holliday calls Blaine out of class during second period. He passes Azimio in the hallway and knocks on the guidance office door. The room belonging to Mr. Costello is pale yellow with motivational posters in faded colors hanging on the walls. Blaine feels wrong sitting across the desk that belongs to someone else – someone he actually trusts – and watching Ms. Holliday flip through his records.

"You're an excellent student, Blaine," she comments. "I'm not surprised your college applications are already in. Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Northwestern. That's an impressive list. Have you thought about a major?"

"Not really."

"Why don't you start by telling me your dream job?"

"Katy Perry. A singer, I mean, with songs that make people feel good."

Ms. Holliday lets a smile that seems genuine flash over her face. "That's fantastic!" But she has to get information out of him, so she settles back into a less enthusiastic persona. "Now tell me what job you think you'll actually have."

He wants to say 'whatever won't get me noticed,' but that would ironically get him noticed, so he grasps for the most boring job he can imagine having.

"Accountant?"

"You don't sound too sure about that. What did you want to be when you were five?"

Blaine freezes. His life began when he came out of the stasis pod at six-years-old. If he had thoughts before then, he doesn't remember them. Even if he did, he wouldn't share them with her. Ms. Holliday comes around the desk and perches on the edge.

"You don't remember anything before you were adopted, do you? That's not unusual."

"What does this have to do with my future?"

Ms. Holliday smiles blandly and retreats again behind the desk. She sorts through some papers, searching for something. Eventually, she holds up a black and white line drawing of children on a playground.

"Personality has a lot to do with what type of career would make you happy. Why don't we play a relationship game? Tell me which character in this picture you relate to most."

Blaine scans the picture. A boy stands on top of the jungle gym, two girls teeter-totter, a boy holds an umbrella for a girl. But it's just a picture until he spots the final child.

"Probably the one hiding behind the tree." Ms. Holliday's eyebrows shoot up, and he hastily adds, "I was sort of kidding."

"No, that's interesting. That's a hard place to be. I've been behind the tree myself. Okay, let me tell you this story about when I started teaching. I followed all the rules, did everything by the book. Then I got punched in the face by a girl named Cameo."

"I don't want to get punched in the face," Blaine says, a hint of a smile on his lips.

"But you have to, Blaine. Otherwise you won't really be living. You'll just be going through the motions. Change is scary, and so is putting yourself out there in the world. But it is so worth it."

"Coming out from behind the tree," Blaine muses.

"Exactly!"

"How did you do that?"

"I started by dressing up like Abraham Lincoln, but you might try something more low-key."

Later, he wonders if they were talking about two different things. To Ms. Holliday, Blaine putting himself out there probably means getting into a situation that makes him expose his powers. But to Blaine, coming out of hiding is exactly that. He can't ever really live the life he wants until he comes out.

o

Kurt isn't looking forward to his college counseling session with Ms. Holliday for a number of reasons. One, she's not a guidance counselor. Two, he doesn't want to even think about how little chance he has at getting into his top choices. Tina has already given him a summary of her session, and his will go the same way.

"To be honest, I'd never actually heard of NYADA before I saw it listed as your top choice," Ms. Holliday says, looking through Kurt's records. "I did some research about their requirements, and I have some concerns about your chances."

"I know. I'm zero on extracurriculars since the Czarina and her minions took over glee club, and I don't have any credits because this school has never actually put on a spring musical like we're supposed to. But that doesn't mean I don't love performing. It's what I want to do with my life, and New York is my dream. I don't want to go anywhere else."

Ms. Holliday closes the folder and slides it aside. "If that's what you want, then you have to fight for it. If other people won't give you what you're looking for, you have to seize every opportunity to create situations that work to your advantage."

Kurt works his face into a mask. They are not talking about performing. He has no delusions this conversation was ever about NYADA. But he can't let her know that he knows that or the game will be up, and he doesn't know what happens then. Something terrible, he's sure.

"I have to convince someone to do a musical and show them what a good idea it is to cast me as a lead," he says.

The corners of Ms. Holliday's lips turn up. "You would be amazeballs at my job."

Kurt knows which job she means. And he agrees. Because he is a fantastic actor.

o

"Hi, Kurt."

Kurt's jumps about a foot in the air and holds his hand to his chest. "God, Blaine. You can't sneak up on me like that after I've just survived gym class."

"Sorry."

Something about his demeanor raises red flags for Kurt. Blaine has never been great about hiding his emotions, but he's completely worthless at it when it comes to Kurt. His smile is a little too forced, as if he's afraid he'll be caught doing something wrong or Kurt will send him away, as if Kurt would ever do that.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. Just coming out from behind the tree."

"What?"

"Nothing. Something Ms. Holliday said."

Kurt eyes him appraisingly. "How did that go?"

He shrugs. "Not a big deal, really. She's undercover. She's not exactly tying us to chairs and shining lights on our faces."

"Good then." He waves at Santana and Tina. "Ladies, join us! I have something else important to talk about."

"Sure. You can borrow my pumps to complete your outfit," Santana says with a wicked smirk. "I have a green floral pair that would match that vest you're wearing that I definitely saw in the misses department."

Kurt ignores her.

"As you are aware, the annual Halloween party at Puck's is coming up this weekend, and I won't be able to be seen with you there if our costumes aren't coordinated."

"Oh, damn. And here I was hoping to spend the evening with you."

Kurt rides right over Santana again. "I've been working on designs, and I think I have the perfect idea. It's Halloween without being cliché and just controversial enough for an extra little thrill. Wait for it." Kurt practically quivers with excitement. "Rocky Horror!"

Santana lifts an eyebrow. "You want us –" she motions between herself and Blaine "– to dress up as transvestite humanoid aliens who come to Earth with the sole purpose of seducing humans? That is so on the nose and so far from the truth at the same time, and I can't deal with the paradox it will create."

"Point taken. Okay, Plan B. Sweeney Todd."

"But then Tina won't be in costume."

Kurt frowns deeply at Santana, and she flashes him a shit-eating grin. "Fine. Fine. We'll just all clash like a horrible Oscar night ensemble put together by Bjork!"

Kurt slams his locker closed and strides down the hallway with his chin in the air. Blaine sends Santana a stern glare, but leaves Tina to give her the verbal reminder that she does have a filter somewhere beneath that bitchy exterior. He hurries after Kurt and catches him in the exterior corridor between the commons and classroom buildings.

"Hey, Kurt," he calls out. "Come on. Don't let Santana get to you, okay? She's just being … Santana. I think coordinating outfits is a great idea. I loved what you put together for us at the Crash Festival."

Kurt thaws a little, and Blaine tugs the sleeve of his white button up so they step out of the way of students going to class. He doesn't remove his hand from Kurt's elbow. Blaine leans against the plastic partition that screens the walkway from the parking lot. The height difference is more pronounced, and he gets to gaze up at Kurt from under his lashes.

"Whatever you want us to wear, I'll wrestle Santana into it. I promise. Just please tell me you'll create our costumes?"

Kurt preens. "Okay."

"Okay." Blaine beams. "By the way, was I supposed to go as Frank?"

Kurt lowers his eyes, blushing as he says, "I would have let you get away with Frank, but I was holding out hope for a brunette Rocky."

Blaine would have never agreed, not in this town and maybe not anywhere, but he can't help but feel incredibly proud of himself that Kurt wants to see him in tiny, revealing shorts. With a final shy look, Kurt spins and flounces off towards his next class. Blaine can't help but stare at his amazing ass as he bounces away.

Then he's falling. That's strange because Blaine doesn't normally just fall down. But he's not falling, exactly. He's _flying_. His back connects forcefully with the hard plastic walls, and he hears something pop – the plastic from the metal bracket, he thinks – and his chest aches with the ghost pressure of the hands that pushed him. He hits the concrete in a heap and blinks up at a letterman jacket.

"Fag," Karofsky spits.

So this is what it feels like to come out from behind the tree.

* * *

**BLAME IT ON THE ALCOHOL, PART I**

Kurt finally decides they should go to the Halloween party as a steampunk airship crew. He's dressed in a double-breasted leather military jacket with tails, beige riding pants, and knee-high buckled boots. Flying goggles hang around his neck. He looks rather fetching, if he does say so himself. And so does Blaine in his aviator gear – bomber jacket, riding pants, and combat boots. A chunky brass monocle held in place with a tight leather head strap covers his right eye.

"This is really messing up my depth perception," Blaine complains. "Doesn't the aviator usually have the flying goggles and the Captain has the monocle?"

"Just stay close to me. I won't let you fall down," Kurt promises.

With a brush of fingertips over Blaine's arm for assurance, he skips across the hallway to his bathroom where Tina and Santana are finishing their costumes with his kit of stage make-up. The entire theme came to him as punishment for Santana. She has on the equivalent of Blaine's aviator costume, but with a short skirt, knee socks, and spike-heeled boots. Also, a corset. A very tight corset that currently makes bending over a problem. Kurt tries not to smirk when she paws at it.

"Is this too much?"

Tina turns for him to inspect the artful "grease" streaked over her face. She looks magnificent as their mechanic. She wears a flared skirt, leather tunic, and green military jacket also streaked with "grease" with grease rags stuffed in the pockets, and a tool belt with too many buckles.

"We look amazing!" Kurt says clapping his hands. "Blaine, get in here. We need to take a picture."

They arrange themselves in front of the mirror, trying to find an angle that doesn't cast a glare back, and snap a few mediocre pictures until Burt finds them and takes pity on them. He eyes Blaine warily, but a sharp look from Kurt prompts him to keep his thoughts to himself. Once he's taken a photo with each of their phones, they call their thanks and goodbyes and head over to Puck's for the party.

The party isn't actually at Puck's house. Rather, it's in the warehouse at the abandoned spoon factory just off 285, but it's Puck who brings the bolt cutters and alcohol every year, so they call it Puck's party. Cars pack the parking lot already by the time Tina pulls up in the car she'd managed to borrow from her parents after signing – literally – an agreement to not drink and drive.

On their way into the warehouse, they see Finn Hudson and Quinn Fabray making out in the bed of his truck like the classy people they are. Mike Chang is trying to organize an epic rendition of _Thriller_ at midnight that they get roped into. The jock block is shotgunning beers and congratulating each other on their ability to burp the alphabet.

The music isn't exactly to Kurt's taste, but it has a strong beat and it could have been worse with Artie as the DJ. The old overhead lights have been turned on, but the filaments are dying so it's dim at best and dark most places in the warehouse. Almost everyone from school, plus tons of people they don't recognize, have turned out in costumes that vary in creativity.

"We have the best costumes," Kurt says definitively. "If this was a party with any sophistication, we'd get a fabulous prize."

"Yeah, well, we're in Roswell, so our prize is going to be whatever cheap alcohol Puck scrounged up," Santana says. "Don't bother yourselves, boys, we'll get you something to wash away those inhibitions that are keeping you from giving up this hopeless ruse of friendship and just boning so we can be done with the awkward sexual tension that surrounds us every second you're in each other's presence."

Santana grabs Tina by the wrist and pulls her through the moving crowd leaving Kurt red-cheeked and Blaine glaring at the back of her retreating head. He turns to Kurt apologetically, but he waves it off.

"You don't have to apologize for her. She's only saying –"

"KURT!"

The screech draws his attention to Rachel Berry. She's wearing some god-awful sage green frock, and he doesn't even know what that costume is all about. She zigzags her way over to him and crushes him in a hug that pins his arms to his sides. Her drink tips and spills – _"My pink! Oh well."_ – on the floor. They haven't spoken since last year when Kurt walked out of glee club, and he doesn't particularly want to spend this – or any – evening with her ever again.

"I've missed you, Kurt. You were my only real competition." She rolls her head, blinks at Blaine, and transfers her clinginess onto him. She regards him through her lashes. "Well, hello, Blaine Anderson. How about you and I go dance?" She swivels her hips in the way that makes Blaine dance alright. He dances right away from her.

"Rachel, you have a boyfriend," Kurt reminds her.

"He threw an egg at me," she pouts.

Kurt can't even imagine the drama that has gone on in Vocal Adrenaline since he left. He wonders if it's more or less all-consuming than the 'my not quite boyfriend is an alien being hunted by the FBI because he used his powers to save my life' situation he's been in for a little over a month now. Probably more, knowing Rachel and Jesse as he does.

Rachel turns back to Blaine hopefully. He just looks uncomfortable.

"I'd like to dance," he answers. "But just so we're clear … I don't play for your team." Because she doesn't seem to get it in her inebriated state, he clarifies for her, "I'm gay."

Kurt does a double take, but keeps his thoughts silent until Rachel stops gushing about her two gay dads and wonders away to unwittingly proposition someone else. She's heading towards Puck. No surprise there.

"So … you're out," Kurt says.

Blaine laughs nervously and scratches at the back of his neck. "Yeah. I've been thinking about it for a while and weighing the need to stay inconspicuous with my desire to be honest about who I am. I'm proud of who I am, and I don't want to hide anymore." He sighs and amends, "Well, that part of me anyway."

"I'm proud of you, Blaine."

A bright smile lights up his face. "I want you to be. You inspire me, Kurt."

Kurt's breath catches in his throat, and he stares in wonder at this gorgeous boy who's come into his life, flipped it upside down, and made him feel so right. He wants to lean down and kiss him senseless, their bargain be damned, and might if they weren't surrounded by homophobic classmates with enough alcohol in their systems to wash away better judgment. So instead, he settles for words.

"You inspire me too," he replies.

They could argue about this. Blaine's compassion and selflessness inspired trust and loyalty in Kurt. Kurt's courage and strength inspired trust and loyalty in Blaine. It could go in circles forever if they wanted to debate it. But they don't, so they leave it undecided to secretly feel that the other is the better man.

"Where are the girls with the drinks?"

They scan the crowd, but even by the drink table they can't distinguish between the dark backs of heads, and they give up waiting for Santana and Tina to return. Getting over to the table without getting separated is a challenge, and they're not a quarter of the way before Blaine grabs Kurt's hand. He looks over his shoulder questioningly, trying to not let the thrill overwhelm him.

"So I guess this means that the whole 'we can't be around each other' line is just totally obliterated, huh?" he asks breathily.

Blaine can't hear him over the music, so he leans in close and speaks directly into Blaine's ear. The sculpted curls tickle Kurt's cheek, and the scent of raspberry and boy overwhelms him. He wants to let his eyes flutter closed and fall into it forever. Blaine's laugh passes like a ghost over his cheek, and shivers fly up Kurt's spine.

"I don't think I ever stood a chance of staying away from you."

Blaine turns, circles Kurt, and takes the lead towards the drinks. Kurt is positive he felt the brush of lips against his jaw, and his heart thuds wildly in his chest. His legs move on muscle memory, because his brain can't process anything but the tingling patch of skin Blaine kissed.

Puck is behind the table mixing drinks. Blaine pulls two red Solo cups from the pile and holds them out to Puck. There's a unique Puck-created drink that he's heard infamous stories about he wants to try.

"I'll have an Alien Blast," Blaine says.

"Me too," Kurt growls.

_Growls_. Blaine stares slack-jawed at a blushing Kurt until Puck yells at him that his damned cup his full and to move the fuck along so other people can experience the wonder of Puckzilla's bartending skills. Blaine hands one of the cups to Kurt, and they hurry along without quite meeting each other's eyes. Eye, in Blaine's case, since his right eye is useless behind the monocle.

"It's really hot in here," Kurt mumbles, but he's right behind Blaine, so he speaks into his ear when he says it.

True to the Halloween theme, there's more to the party than just loud music and dancing. Puck's cousin's stepbrother's girlfriend (or some other web of relation) has procured a tractor and wagon. They're doing hayrides around the grounds. Also, some drunk geniuses are playing dodge ball with pumpkins.

"Do you want to …?"

The hayride sounds like a good plan to Blaine, so they climb up, careful not to spill their drinks, and takes seats across from Lauren Zizes who is deep in conversation with a mousy girl from AV about what a fantastic boyfriend Robert Pattinson would be, except it sounds more like she's talking about Edward Cullen and doesn't get the difference between actor and character.

Blaine takes a sip of his drink. It's sharp and strong, and Blaine grimaces after swallowing a mouthful, but it passes after a minute. Everything feels better. He's tingling and floating and on a romantic hayride with the boy he loves. He sighs wistfully, lets his head fall onto Kurt's shoulder, and stares up into his pretty blue-green eyes.

"You are so beautiful."

Kurt freezes. He's torn between preening, because a boy has never told him that before, and freaking out, because what the actual fuck? They're on a hayride with letterman jackets for Christ's sake. He gets that they've pushed boundaries tonight, but a stolen kiss on the cheek is a far cry from … this. This is stupid and dangerous and they both know that. The tractor sputters to life and begins the bumpy roll over the rough terrain around the warehouse. Blaine sways without putting up any resistance, like he has no control of his muscles to do so. He nuzzles his nose into Kurt's neck.

"You smell amazing," Blaine adds. "Like such a boy."

"Oh my God, Blaine. You have to stop."

Kurt glances around nervously at the other people on the hayride. They've drawn Lauren's attention, but she looks more intrigued than anything else. But they've also caught Karofsky's eye, and he's not interested. He's glaring.

"Blaine, sit up," he says tensely.

"Can't. Feel funny," Blaine slurs.

_Slurs_. Kurt peers into the red plastic cup tipping in Blaine's hand. If he hadn't seen Blaine take a drink, he would think none of the liquid was gone.

"Oh, fuck my life," Kurt mutters. "Of course alcohol and alien physiology don't mix well. Okay. We have to get you up. Now."

With some difficulty, he manages to get Blaine to sit up on his own. He's dead weight and full of such insights such as: "Your skin is so pale. It's so pale, Kurt. How do you _do_ that in the desert? It's amazing. It's so amazing" and "We should totally do a duet, Kurt. If there was a stage here, we could sing _Don't You Want Me?_ because the 80's are awesome, Kurt, and I have no idea – no freaking idea – why we aren't together already." Kurt kind of wants to smack him and kind of wants to kiss him. Drunk people are funny and annoying and too truthful.

"Okay. There you go. Just stay sitting up on your own."

Kurt sits tensely, sneaking glances at Karofsky and planning their escape when the hayride comes to its end. He texts Tina a simple warning – "911. Meet at the car." – and goes back to worrying. The back wheel hits a rut, and Blaine flops over again in the middle of his speech on the wonders of Kurt's scarf collection. Only this time, his face lands in Kurt's lap.

It would be freaking hilarious if only it didn't draw out a snarl from Karofsky.

* * *

**BLAME IT ON THE ALCOHOL, PART II**

Santana drags Tina straight past the makeshift bar – a fold out table – where Puck plays bartender with his vile "alien blast" concoction that gave him a free ticket to impregnate Quinn Fabray two years ago. They emerge into the cool night air on the opposite side of the warehouse, and Santana heads for another building with dirt-covered windows and corrugated metal sides.

"Hey, wait. What about Kurt and Blaine?"

Santana rolls her eyes. "Do you really think our pretty ponies will even notice we're gone?"

Tina can't deny that. "Okay, but you're not thirsty? I've never seen you or Blaine at one of these parties. You're telling me you're not dying to live up the night as a normal teenager for once?"

"As a matter of fact, I am looking forward to being a normal teenager tonight, but not by drinking myself under the table. I thought, since you have the boring job of being our DD, you should get the chance to play with a couple Cs."

She frames her breasts with her palms and winks lasciviously. Tina's cheeks burn pink, but she grins widely and nods quickly. With a laugh, Santana takes her wrist again and resumes the retreat to their dark hiding place. Tina sees a warehouse full of rusted metal shelving, but only for a second before her eyes slam closed when Santana crashes their lips together.

They spin and sway in the darkness, fingers digging into silky hair and soft hips, until the backs of Tina's thighs hit a high table, and she settles on the edge. Santana kisses possessively. She holds Tina's head in place while she sucks and tastes and licks into her mouth. Tina likes it. It makes her feel sexy and bold, and she doesn't give up control without some fight.

Santana's lips are so soft and full, and she always tastes like sugar and spice from the sweets and Tabasco sauce and other odd combinations her alien taste buds enjoy. Tina licks into the seam of her lips, and Santana parts with a sharp breath and slides her tongue along Tina's. Her fingers press into Santana's hips where the corset ends and her sinfully short skirt begins. She takes a risk, lowers her hands to the bare skin between the bottom of the skirt and exposed garters buckled high on Santana's thighs. Santana breaks away with a surprised gasp.

"Is this okay?" Tina asks.

"Yeah. Just didn't take you for the below-the-waist type."

"There's a lot you have to learn about me."

With a mischievous smile, she tugs on Santana's thighs, and she falls forward. Her arms hastily loop around Tina's neck to keep her balance, and their bodies slot together thigh-between-thighs. Tina releases a strangled cry when Santana rubs against her just right and her head falls back. The other girl ducks her head and attaches her lips to the column of exposed neck. Tina can feel the corners of her mouth turned up.

"Proud of yourself?"

"Extremely," Santana laughs.

Santana bites and sucks at her skin, and Tina knows she'll have a hickey tomorrow, but it feels so good she doesn't ask her to stop. The corset Santana is wearing pushes her breasts up high, and through the thin cotton shirt, Tina can feel her peaked nipples. She forces Santana's head up, kisses her so hard and sloppy her swollen lips ache from it, and trails kisses down her jaw and neck. She parts the already gaping shirt and mouths over the swell of Santana's breasts.

Santana's body arches into her, and she pushes out a moan through tight lips. Every shift makes her rub up between Tina's legs more, and it takes her a few minutes to realize Santana is doing it on purpose. The girl knows what she's doing, and damn it feels good. Tina's so turned on her body thrums with it.

"Oh my God, you feel amazing," Tina whispers into her skin.

"I would feel better without this." She paws at the corset cinched around her waist. "Fucking Hummel and his fucking corsets," Santana curses.

Tina laughs and nuzzles against Santana's breast bone. Her fingers caress the soft skin of Santana's thighs and slide up under her skirt. She runs her fingertips along the place where her thighs meet a perfect, pert behind and feels the lacy edge of panties. It hits her that maybe this has gone too far.

"We should probably cool off," Tina says.

Santana pulls back, incredulousness knitting her eyebrows. "You're kidding, right? You're about two inches and one good thrust from becoming whole new woman and you want to stop?"

Tina returns her hands to Santana's hips and pushes her back a couple inches. Santana huffs and looks away, but Tina pets at her hips and shifts around trying to make eye contact. Santana crosses her arms over her chest and refuses, so Tina just talks anyway.

"We should talk about this … us and what we're doing. I love sneaking off to kiss you in the eraser room and my bedroom and my car and under the bleachers and I think you were trying to get me to meet you in the school kitchen yesterday?"

"I saw the lunch ladies leaving for the day."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. I just think instead of one of our secret make-out sessions, we should talk about what we're doing and why and what that means for us."

"We're hot seventeen-year-old girls making out everywhere we have two seconds of privacy. What the hell do you think it means? It's been four freaking years since I've done anything with anyone. I'm freaking horny as fuck, sick of my right hand, and you're into me. So, there you go. Meaning found."

Tina crosses her arms over her chest, cocks her head to the side, and lifts an eyebrow. "Really?"

Santana's resolve wavers, but she's so scared to say out loud what her attraction to Tina really means. "I tell it like it is. You know that. You either love me or hate me, and I don't care which one it is. This is who I –"

" – pretend to be. I've already seen past your walls, Santana. You can't put them back up and expect to fool me. And you don't get to lash out at me because you're angry at yourself for feeling something you can't control."

Santana breathes out sharply through her nose and looks away. How can Tina say things like that without spitting them like insults and accusations? She wishes that's how the words sounded, because then she'd have an excuse to be angry at Tina.

"I really like you, Santana. I'm confused about the labels, but I know how I feel about you."

Santana shakes her head. "I'm not ready for that. I just … I can't, Tina. It's not even about how much attention it would attract. I'm just not ready to hold your hand in the hallway and go to an Indigo Girls concert."

"It might come as a surprise to most of the kids who attend our school, but you don't _have_ to paw at your significant other in the hallway. As long as we can tell Kurt and Blaine and my parents, I'll be happy."

"Significant other?" Santana asks softly.

Tina shrugs, looks down, toes at the ground. "I mean … if you wanted to be my girlfriend."

Santana has done the dating thing before. They were all relationships that were barely deserving of the name with breakups that followed too many prying questions. But with Tina, she has a shot at something real. She feels something for this girl that she's not ready to name, but it's definitely there. She already knows Santana is an alien, and it doesn't concern her at all. And she's … _Tina_.

A smile curls up the corners of Santana's mouth. She starts to speak, but the ringtone for a text message from Kurt interrupts. It's probably just Kurt asking where they are, but there's always the chance at a party like this, in a town like this, that it's something more.

"We have to go," Tina says sharply. "Kurt texted 9-1-1, and he never abuses it. The last time he said it was an emergency, Azimio had thrown a slushie in his face."

"The fuck?" Santana demands. "Who does shit like that?"

"Azimio's one bright idea, apparently. They'll meet us at the car."

The conversation is on hold, but they're too concerned about their friends to even say so. The party is still in full swing in the warehouse, and the hayride wagon rumbles and bumps over the rough terrain. Kurt and Blaine aren't at the car when they arrive.

"Two minutes," Santana allows.

They're the longest two minutes of her life. Dread grows in her stomach. When the time runs up, she texts Kurt and Blaine: "Looking for you. Text when you get to car." Tina leaves the car unlocked so they can get in if they need to. And then they look for the most likely culprits: letterman jackets.

o

Kurt is prepared when the hayride comes to a stop. He's had about a quarter hour to plan how this will go down. As soon as the wheels stop turning, he draws Blaine's arm over his shoulder and hoists the other boy up. They're closer to the back of the wagon than Karofsky, and he's banking on several other people blocking the way giving them a few more seconds to scramble down.

His calculations go wrong because Blaine is less coordinated than usual and because Karofsky is angrier than usual.

"Where you going in such a rush, homo?" Karofsky asks.

Azimio and some lacrosse player, Rick something-or-other, stand up too. Their unbalanced weight rocks the wagon, and Blaine collapses heavily onto Kurt. Blaine has mostly figured out something bad is happening, but the alcohol in his system makes him otherwise worthless. At least he's not rambling about Kurt's beautiful eyes and pale skin anymore.

Kurt tries to make a point of not responding when an insult substitutes his name, but ignoring the jocks makes them just as angry as a witty retort they're too dense to understand.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!"

Karofsky catches Kurt's shoulder and spins him around. The quick movement sends Blaine's head spinning, and he stumbles into a bale of hay. He barely catches himself from tumbling over the side of the wagon. Kurt tries to go to him, but Karofsky catches him by the jacket. The people on the hayride recognize the dangerous situation and surreptitiously slip away before they're caught in the crossfire.

"What is your problem?" Kurt snarls.

"My problem is you spreading around your gay." Karofsky jerks his head in Blaine's direction. "You think we didn't notice you setting your sights on Anderson? You're always all over him, and now look at him. He's just as faggy as you are."

"Being gay isn't a communicable disease," Kurt fires back.

"Well, it sure looks like you communicatin' it," Azimio says.

Kurt can't stop his eyes from rolling. "Yes, and it looks like the sun touches the horizon."

Not surprisingly, the jocks can't work that one out. From the corner of his eye, Kurt can see Blaine climbing to his feet unsteadily. He almost tips out of the wagon again, and that, more than Karofsky's threatening hands on him, worries Kurt.

"I think you need to be taught a lesson. About respect and keeping your hands to yourself."

"That's ironic," Blaine slurs, "considering you've got your hands on Kurt."

Karofsky's face twists. It takes him a minute to decide how to react to Blaine's insolence, but when he does, it's too fast for Kurt to stop him. He lets go of Kurt's jacket and slams his palms into Blaine's chest. In his inebriated state, Blaine doesn't think to tense up his muscles and offer resistance. He flies through the air right off the end of the high wagon and lands on the ground with a heavy thud and a sharp crack.

* * *

**AB-POSITIVE**

Kurt remembers very little about what happened after Blaine fell. He knows he jumped off the wagon and twisted his ankle; he knows the jocks ran; he knows someone called an ambulance; he knows the girls showed up. But all he remembers is riding in the back of the ambulance, staring at Blaine and avoiding the medic's questions about his ankle. Honestly, his ankle doesn't hurt at all. He can't even feel anything below the knee.

"Is he going to be okay?"

He thinks he asks it about a hundred times. At the hospital, he fights off the paramedics and hobbles after Blaine as he's wheeled into the emergency room. The doctor allows Kurt to stay by Blaine's bed because he has questions.

"You were with him?" Kurt nods. "When did he lose consciousness?"

"About half an hour ago."

It's funny how Kurt's senses return when the question is about Blaine's wellbeing.

The doctors won't let him stay standing after that. Some younger doctors direct him to the bed beside Blaine's, and they get to work patching up his ankle. He doesn't resist because he's able to watch them work on Blaine. Just the sight of him, eyes closed and unmoving, puts a pit into Kurt's stomach. He wants to cry and scream and clutch at Blaine's chest, it feels that traumatic. Blaine, who saved Kurt's life with a touch, relies on human ingenuity and medicine to bring him back.

"Has he been IDed?" The doctor asks. "All right. Let's call his parents. There's no sign of bleeding or swelling, but we should still do an MRI. While we wait for it to open up, get a blood test."

He asks for something – a certain gauge of needle, maybe – but Kurt has stopped listening. His eyes lock onto the dark red liquid filling up the glass tube, and his heart beats wildly in his chest. If they look at those cells under a microscope, they'll see what Kurt saw: oblong cells with dark, vivid black nuclei and swirling green cytoplasm. Beautiful, microscopic nebulas. Alien cells.

Santana and Tina burst into the emergency room just as the phlebotomist is pulling the needle out of Blaine's arm. Tina rushes over to Kurt, but Santana has frozen. She stares at the vial slipped into the plastic tote that will go to the lab for testing. When Kurt won't answer, and Santana doesn't move, Tina follows their line of sight. She's never seen their cells under a microscope, but she's a smart girl and puts the pieces together.

The doctors, nurses, and interns move on to other patients eventually. They promise someone will come back when the MRI opens up. It sounds more like a threat to those who know Blaine isn't human.

"I'll get the blood," Tina says.

"You, seriously?" Santana scoffs.

"Yes, me. Seriously. Your in-your-face, queen-bitch methods aren't getting you anywhere with Carole Hudson. I'll handle it."

Santana shakes her head, not quite understanding, but Tina is in too much of a hurry and Kurt is too worried about Blaine to explain that, contrary to what one might think, Finn Hudson's mother is an intelligent woman who runs the hospital's laboratory.

Santana steps up to Blaine's bed and takes his hand. She brushes his curls off his forehead and tenderly runs her fingers through the parts flattened by the leather strap holding the monocle in place. The medics removed it. Blaine had landed on the costume piece – the sharp crack when he fell was the plastic busting – and the force of impact had left angry red slices around his eye. It had started to bruise as well. It makes Kurt sick to think he'd forced Blaine to wear it.

"She can't get that blood. What are we going to do?" Santana worries.

"What have you done before?"

The girl shakes her head. "Nothing like this has ever happened."

"What about when you get sick?"

"We don't ever get sick."

Kurt regards Santana for a moment. The worry creasing her brow and the corners of her eyes makes her look older, more serious. She can't stop touching Blaine, like she thinks he might disappear if she doesn't have a hold of him. And if that happens ….

"_I'm not trying to take him away from you, Santana."_

"_Good. Because he's all I have."_

"Take my blood."

Santana looks up sharply, almost like she's surprised to see Kurt even though she's been speaking to him. "What?"

"Take my blood. We'll switch it with Blaine's."

She stares while Kurt swings his legs over the side of the bed. He's horribly lopsided with one foot in its boot and the other wrapped in gauze. He almost stumbles, but to his surprise, Santana catches him. She gazes up at him like she's never seen him before. Maybe she hasn't. To her, he's been the stupid human Blaine risked everything for. Maybe now she finally sees him as someone worth saving.

"You know this is illegal."

"Like lying to the police? Breaking and entering? Theft? I've seen what your cells look like under a microscope, Santana. We can't let them analyze his blood. Let's go find a needle and vial."

Santana nods, and they finally stop wasting time.

o

Unlike Seattle Grace-Mercy West, Roswell-Chaves County Hospital has its quiet moments and spaces. Tonight is busier than most because it's Halloween and that brings out the crazies, but on the whole the basement is quiet. Tina's heels click against the floor and echo off the bare walls, but otherwise she hears only the buzz of the hospital overhead.

The door of the lab up ahead stands open, and Tina slips into the waiting room. On the other side of a glass divider sits a chair and table where blood is taken for those patients able to walk down to the lab. It's empty and dark tonight. Tina hurries through the room, grateful for the carpeting to muffle her heels, and edges into the testing room.

The harsh florescent lights illuminate the counters where microscopes, centrifuges, and racks of blood samples sit. To the right, a bank of medical coolers buzz on the other side of a dividing counter where two other technicians work during the day. Tonight, only Mrs. Hudson is on call, and she's nowhere to be found.

Tina hurries over to the neat plastic racks and thumbs through the long rows of blood samples waiting to be tested. A print-out label is affixed to each vial with the surname larger than the rest of the information.

"Anderson … Anderson … Ander –"

She almost doesn't hear it under her muttering: the click of a high heel on the linoleum in the hallway. Tina freezes. Mrs. Hudson doesn't wear heels to work (or anywhere, for that matter). Tina darts to the right and ducks behind the other work counter just in time. Muffled footsteps enter the lab, and the tinkling of glass vials touching one another starts up. Whoever is in the lab is looking for a blood sample too.

Tina knows she has to look. She has to find out who is snooping around, but she terrified of what happens if her head pops up over the counter at the same time the sneak looks in her direction. She expels a calming breath, but she's saved from having to look.

"Excuse me? What are you doing in here?" Mrs. Hudson asks sharply.

"Oh, hello."

Tina blanches. She knows that voice. Ms. Holliday.

"I'm here for my blood test." Silence passes. "I was told to come here at eleven?"

"In the morning," Mrs. Hudson says pointedly. "We don't do tests after six unless a doctor orders them for a patient."

"Oh, how silly of me. I'm sorry to have bothered you."

Ms. Holliday flees before too many questions can be asked. Tina's insides gnaw with worry. Did she get the blood sample? Or is Mrs. Hudson about to look at Blaine's blood under a microscope? Either way, something terrible will happen if she doesn't act now. She swings out from the other end of the counter and hastily takes a wide step over to the open door. She raps on it twice with her knuckles.

Mrs. Hudson spins around in her chair and offers a polite smile, as if she vaguely recognizes Tina as one of Finn's schoolmates. Tina wants to be an actress. She has plans to study musical theater in New York. She can do this.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mrs. Hudson. It's just that my friend is upstairs, and they told me you're doing his blood test, and …" Tina sniffs, letting the called up emotions wash over her. Her lower lip trembles, and her eyes mist. "I'm so worried about him."

"Oh, sweetheart," Mrs. Hudson coos. "Come here and sit down for a moment."

Mrs. Hudson ushers Tina into a chair and rubs her back soothingly while the girl lets the very real worry and stress of the situation turn into tears that spill freely down her cheeks. She talks through it all, blubbering about how close she and Blaine are – even though they're really not, and they should probably work on that now that they're all in this together – and how much he means to Kurt. Her words are hardly recognizable through her tears.

"Tina, sweetheart, listen to me."

So Mrs. Hudson does know her name. She remembers from years and years ago when she came over to the Hudson's for a birthday party that everyone in class had been invited too. She feels a little guilty about playing on the heartstrings of such a kind woman.

"From what the doctor ordered, it doesn't sound like he's worried about finding anything in Blaine's blood. It's just a precaution, okay? And if he thought the head trauma was serious, he would have cleared the MRI right away. I think Blaine's going to be just fine, okay?"

Tina nods and draws in a great, shuddering breath that turns into more tears. Mrs. Hudson turns and glances around the room, but apparently doesn't find what she's looking for.

"Let me go get you some tissues, okay?"

The second she's gone, Tina bolts out of the chair and rapidly searches through the dozens of blood samples waiting in the trays. She spots the surname Anderson finally, and her heart skips a beat. It's not in the tray with the rest; it's lying on Mrs. Hudson's clipboard. She had been that close to testing his blood. Just to be sure, Tina grabs the slide from the microscope too.

She's back in her chair succumbing to more waterworks when Mrs. Hudson comes back into the room with a box of Kleenex. The vial of blood and microscope dig into the skin of her calf where she shoved them down her boot.

"Th-thank you, M-Mrs. Hudson," she cries.

"You're a sweet girl to care so much about your friend."

Tina hurries away from the lab before she's caught out and texts Kurt and Santana when she's in the elevator. Santana's reply leads her to an empty patient room on the third floor – two above emergency.

"I got it," she says triumphantly.

She stops short when she sees what's going on in the room. A plastic tourniquet restricts blood flow through Kurt's extended arm, and Santana has a needle and vial in hand while he prods around his arm trying to find a vein.

"Are you insane?" Tina hisses. "Do you even know what you're doing?"

"It doesn't matter if she does or not. We have to replace Blaine's blood with a human's, and since they can tell male from female blood, I'm the only option." He looks up at Santana. "Just do it. I don't think you can kill me with a sterile needle."

Tina cringes when Santana slips the needle into Kurt's arm. She fixes the vial into the hollow tube, and it fills up with dark red liquid. When she's done, she passes her hand over Kurt's skin. The angry red mark that would normally bleed lightly closes over. No one will ever know Kurt had blood drawn.

"Wait. The label," Tina says.

Santana uses her powers to peel it off the original and paste it onto the new one.

"Now let's get down to Blaine's bed with that. When Mrs. Hudson comes looking for it, the story is that she forgot it, and it's been on the table the whole time," Tina says.

They ride the elevator down because Kurt can't climb stairs with his ankle and shuffle him back into the bed next to Blaine's again just before Mrs. Hudson shows up. She buys the story that she forgot the blood sample. She rubs Tina's back and casts her a sympathetic look as she departs.

"So maybe you do have deviousness in you," Santana compliments her.

o

Carole is on call tonight, which means she gets to go home as soon as she's done with urgent work, and Blaine's blood sample was the final test of the night. She'd found nothing more unusual than a rare blood type, just like she'd told Tina Cohen-Chang would probably be the case. Carole does a double take in the lobby. A man she hasn't seen in about ten years – and that's something in Roswell – sits in the uncomfortable chairs that have been losing their cushion for years.

"Burt? Burt Hummel?"

He glances up, and annoyance fades into guarded friendliness. "Carole Hudson. You still on a crusade to slander my restaurant?"

"That depends if you're still serving over a thousand calories on one plate," she returns.

Burt laughs and shakes his head. "No. Kurt took care of that a few years ago. It's still burger and fries, but you can't see the grease on the plate anymore."

"Smart kid."

"Yeah, you'd think."

Carole's brow furrows, and she takes a seat across from Burt without being asked. Normally, she'd never be so bold, but she's still in a consoling mood after Tina's breakdown in her lab. Burt tries to brush off his concern, but gives in after a minute of hedging.

"It's just … teenage boys, you know? He's been discharged, but he won't leave until his boyfriend wakes up. And I'm not sure how I feel about his boyfriend, who he won't admit is his boyfriend."

He regards Carole sternly, as if to judge whether she has anything to say about Kurt's sexuality. She doesn't. He is who is he. But she's surprised Burt doesn't have something to say himself. The guy she remembers from high school would have had a problem with it. She wonders if his love for Kurt changed his mind. Her love for Finn had changed her in dramatic ways too.

Carole throws a knowing look at him. "Oh, I have stories too. You want to hear one?"

"Sure." Burt shrugs.

"Two years ago, I walk in on Finn singing … to a sonogram. A couple months later, his pregnant girlfriend moves in with us because her parents kicked her out. About a month after that, I find out that the baby isn't Finn's. The father is his best friend. So Quinn moved out and went to live with the Puckermans. They eventually broke up, and she started dating another football player. Then she cheats on him with Finn, who for some unfathomable reason took her back. Now they're talking about getting married this summer and starting a 'real' family together. So, Burt Hummel, tell me … what exactly has Blaine Anderson done to your son?"

Burt blinks twice, huffs, and crosses his arms over his chest. Carole bites her lip to keep from laughing. Burt was always a handsome guy in high school, and popular too, but fatherhood suits him better than a football jersey.

"Come on," she says. "Let me buy you a cup of coffee while you wait."

o

Blaine wakes up after an hour in the hospital. The doctors are surprised by the quick recovery, but chalk it up to his injury not being as bad as they thought. Kurt can't help but wonder if Blaine's healing ability quickened his recovery. He sits on the edge of Blaine's bed, holding his hand and stroking over the soft skin with his thumb. He wants to say so much, but not here.

Blaine's parents arrive a quarter hour after he wakes up. Diane and Christian Anderson are dressed in their Halloween costumes – standard fare, nothing overly creative. Blaine's dad is not what Kurt expected. He's short – shorter than his wife by at least two inches – with a head of wavy, distinguished silver-streaked black hair. He and Blaine could easily be mistaken for biological father and son. When Diane sees Kurt, her mouth presses into a thin line, but Christian has eyes only for his son. He rushes over to Blaine's bed, and the teenagers scatter to give him room. He cups his son's cheeks in his palms and kisses his forehead.

"You have no idea how scared we were, Squirt."

"Dad," Blaine whines.

"Your son is fine," the doctor says, "but I recommend keeping him overnight and doing an MRI tomorrow."

Christian nods immediately, but Blaine shakes his head.

"No, I'm fine. Please, I have a ton of school work, and … I just don't want to stay here, Dad."

His dad regards him skeptically, but nods at last. The doctor scribbles something into his chart and flips his closed.

"Okay, but I want you to take it easy for the next few days. Any headaches or dizziness and you should come back right away."

The doctor leaves them in peace – hopefully to draw up some discharge papers so they can all go home – and Christian goes back to fussing over Blaine. Kurt begins to wonder if the story of the car isn't all that much more tragic because it was so uncharacteristic of Christian Anderson. His eyes dart to Blaine's mom, who still glares at Kurt, and suddenly the puzzle pieces fit together.

"Dad, I'm really fine. My friends were here for me, and I'm awake now. I promise I'm fine."

Christian looks across the bed at Santana. They don't seem exactly friendly towards each other, but they share a nod. Tina offers a small smile, and Christian holds out his hand while they're introduced for the first time. Then he looks at Kurt.

"Dad, this is Kurt," Blaine says softly.

Mr. Anderson does a double take at his son's tone, and then regards Kurt again more closely. Christian seems like a formal man who appreciates gestures, so Kurt holds out his hand and gives a firm handshake.

"It's nice to meet you, Kurt."

His voice is warm and rich and honest.

* * *

**A CERTAIN WAY**

Blaine comes back to school on Monday. His dad wanted him to stay home for another day "just in case," but Blaine really did feel better. Physically, at least. He remembers very little of the actual events of Friday night, but Kurt had filled him in at the hospital. Apparently, alien physiology and alcohol did not mix. But neither boy really dwelled on that part.

They had pushed Blaine off the back of a wagon.

When he thought about the words, it didn't sound so bad. Even when he measured the rough height of a wagon, it didn't seem too terrible. The fall was maybe five feet. But facts and figures have a way of obscuring the real issue.

They wanted to cause him bodily harm because he's gay.

And suddenly he has to wonder …. What if they'd been on the edge of a building or a cliff? Would that have changed anything for them? Or is he so vile in their eyes as to not be worthy of the air that fills his lungs every day?

In the hallways at school, Blaine tries to fade into the background like he's always done, but it's impossible now. All anyone is talking about is how Blaine Anderson went to the Halloween party with Kurt Hummel. The rumors swirl and grow, and now he knows what it feels like to be Santana.

Sleep with one person, become the school slut.

Go to one party with a boy, become the social outcast.

At least, in this town.

He knows it's not fair to lump everyone together. Plenty of people continue to ignore him as they always have. A few people tell him he and Kurt are really cute together. Glee club members, mostly, who were friends with Kurt and maybe still are even they don't spend a lot of time together anymore. But those encounters are few and far between.

When Santana finds Blaine after third hour, he's sitting on the floor with his back to the lockers and his books spread out around him. She crouches down beside him to help him gather up the fallout from the locker check.

"Fucking jocks. I'm gonna kill them."

"Santana, no."

"So what are we gonna do?"

"Nothing."

"Excuse me?"

Santana stands up with her arms full of books that Blaine takes from her. He won't meet her eye, but she can see he's embarrassed and angry, and knowing him, about ten minutes away from beating the living crap out of a punching bag.

"They do something to us, we do something to them. Nothing good can come from it. If we use our powers, it'll raise too many questions. Then what I did to Kurt starts coming up again."

"That's why we need to shut them up right now."

"No."

Blaine glares at her, but all she can see is the deep scratches around his eye that he refuses to heal with his powers because it'll be suspicious if he recovers too quickly. She agrees, but has no intention of keeping her word. The jocks are going to pay for messing with her brother, and she's going to have a hella good time letting Snixx come out to play.

The first up is Dave Karofsky. It takes her about two-point-five seconds of watching him check out Sam Evans's ass to realize they've got a massive closet case on their hands. Not that she cares. She bumps into him in the hallway, all apologies, and uses her alien mojo below the belt. Literally. The next time she sees Karofsky, he's itching in places that can't be scratched in public.

"I hope she was worth it," Azimio tells him.

Santana laughs cruelly, and she decides for that zinger, Azimio gets off a little easier. After everyone retreats into their classrooms for last hour, she makes sure all his football things are in his locker, and then she melts the lock into a twisted blob of metal.

She stands back and watches for half an hour while Azimio pulls, punches, and screams at his locker when it won't open. Finally, the janitor has to come pry the door off the hinges. By the time he's done, football practice is halfway over and Coach Tanaka screams at him for the second half. Santana follows to watch that too.

Up last is Rick "the Stick" Nelson, and since he's one failed test away from getting kicked off the lacrosse team, Santana thinks it's only fitting that she changes the answers on his geography test with a simple wave of the hand. The rain in Spain falls mainly "from the sky" is maybe the most awesome answer to that question ever, and it's just douche-y enough to make their teacher irritated when she grades the tests.

She feels pretty damned proud of herself for the next couple days, but it doesn't last. Blaine is furious when he picks her up on Wednesday morning. She's surprised he hasn't snapped before now, but if it's her that makes him finally drop that calm façade and let himself feel angry like he should, then whatever.

"What are you doing? You promise you wouldn't do anything to those guys."

"I promised I wouldn't hurt them, and I haven't. Karofsky's rash went away, Azimio got his locker opened, and Nelson would have failed another test anyway."

"You just …. Will you stop?" Blaine shouts. "You don't have to protect me or take care of me or whatever you're doing."

"Oh, really? Just like you don't have to clean up my messes or talk me out of bad ideas or whatever you're _always_ doing to me?" she fires back. "You are not just my friend, Blaine. You're my brother. I get to do shit like this for you even if it makes you crazy, and you're stuck with me, so you're going to have to deal with it for the rest of your life. So stop bitching about it and start accepting it."

"I can handle my own business."

"No one is questioning how much of a man you are."

"That is not fair, Santana. This has nothing to do with you being a girl, and you know it."

She exhales heavily through her nose. "I know," she concedes. "I just …. Damn it, Blaine. I want to take care of you, okay? I always have, and I always will. I have no freaking clue why I bother when you react like this, but I've always felt like it was my job to protect you." She looks down at her shoes. "And I totally failed on Friday because I was so caught up in what I wanted."

She can feel Blaine glancing over at her while he pulls into the school parking lot, but she won't meet his eyes. He reaches over and takes her hand. She squeezes back. They don't need to say anything else. But it doesn't erase Santana's guilt either.

o

"Uh, Kurt?"

Kurt glances up, and then hastily jumps backwards into the bank of lockers when his eyes land on the WRHS logo on the arm of a letterman jacket.

"Whoa, dude," Finn Hudson says, holding out his palms. "I come in peace."

The phrase rubs Kurt the wrong way considering what Finn's friends did to Blaine. And him, he supposes, but he's so used to it by now it's par for the course. The sprained ankle was new, but Blaine set that to rights even though Kurt wears the bandage for show around the house. Still, it doesn't seem like Finn has come spoiling for a fight, and he's not smart enough to trick Kurt into any plots.

"What do you even want?" Kurt snaps.

"Look, dude, I just want you to know that I don't approve of what those guys did."

Kurt pauses with his French textbook halfway out of his locker. He narrows his eyes at Finn. They've never really had much interaction aside from the occasional class together, but they've known each other practically their whole lives.

"You nailed lawn furniture to my roof. You threw pee balloons at me."

"I wasn't actually there for the pee thing. But I'm really sorry about all of that. I don't know why I did it, but I never did it because you're gay. Now that I know that's why those guys do it, I'm done. I swear."

Kurt lifts a brow. It boggles his mind to think about, but the honesty is all over Finn's slightly dopey face. How anyone could mistake the intention behind the bullying is beyond him, and yet here Finn stands, trying to become a better person. Sometimes, Kurt hates taking the moral high road.

"That's great, Finn. I hope this teaches you to actively question dubious behavior in the future." Finn blinks. Right. Too many big words. "I hope you've grown a backbone?"

"Oh, right. Yeah, dude, totally."

Kurt heads to class, but Finn is right beside him like an overgrown puppy that used to be a stray until Kurt unintentionally showed him a bit of kindness. He sighs in frustration, but Finn doesn't pick up on that.

"Yes, Finn? What else can I do for you?"

"I'm having a video game marathon on Saturday night, and I was thinking maybe you could come over. You could bring your boyfriend, if you wanted to. I figure your dad will probably be picking up my mom at about six or whatever, so you can come over around then."

"My dad …. Picking her up for what?"

"Their date," Finn says brightly.

Kurt feels sick. So this is what it feels like when the person you love most in the world keeps secrets from you.

"I'll … I'll ask Blaine," he manages to get out.

o

"Hey. Where have you been?" Tina asks.

Santana glances up from her history homework, and then back down. Tina takes that as an invitation to join her at the study table in the library. A few other students requested library passes during study hall and sit at nearby tables. They cast annoyed looks at Tina for even whispering.

"I've had a lot of stuff going on with Blaine and ACP classes and everything."

"You didn't return any of my texts."

Santana drops her pencil in the crease of her book, crosses her arms over her homework, and looks up at Tina with a steady gaze. She'd known for days this conversation was coming, and now that it's here, she can't back down from it.

"We can't do this," she says plainly.

Tina's face falls in slow motion. It cuts Santana to the core to watch her crumple and to know she's the cause of it, but she keeps up a brave face, the one she hides behind when she hears untrue rumors about herself or when she watches alien monster movies or when she wants to be a normal teenager and can't.

"Because I'm a girl."

"Because you're human. When I'm with you, I feel things – so many things – that I shouldn't. You make me feel human, but I'm not, and I can't ever forget that. Blaine and I have survived in secret for so long because of who we are together. If one of us doesn't hold up our end …. The end."

Tears escape the corners of Tina's eyes. Not sobs or even a steady flow, but enough to let Santana know her words hurt. The tears sting like slaps, and that's how she knows she's making the right decision.

"I'm weaker when I'm with you, and I can't be weak."

o

The punching bag jerks in the air as Blaine pummels it with his fists. The gloves only absorb so much of the impact, and his hands ache in the best way. The pain reminds him that he's alive, that he's allowed to feel. His anger ebbs away with the sweat pouring down his temples and chest, and though he's exerting himself to his limits, he can breathe easier.

"Am I interrupting?"

Blaine punches the bag twice more to complete his repetitions, and then turns towards Kurt. He looks so out of place in the gym with his layers of designer clothes. He's tensed up, either because he's trying not to touch anything or because he's so rarely felt comfortable in this room, but it's just the two of them after hours.

"I was almost done," Blaine answers.

He lowers his head and starts unwrapping his hands rather than watch Kurt watch him.

"Oh, well …. I just had a very interesting conversation. Apparently, my dad is dating again. He didn't mention it to me."

Kurt sounds upset, and it takes everything Blaine has not to fall into their usual routine of comfort-and-encourage. Kurt doesn't speak for a while, but he goes on when Blaine doesn't respond.

"Anyway. Finn Hudson, of all people, invited us to come over and – I can't believe I'm considering this – play video games. I don't want to go, and I definitely don't want to play video games, but I am curious about this date I haven't been told about, and it would the perfect opportunity for a little spying mission. What do you say?"

Blaine shrugs without looking up. "I'm not really into video games."

Kurt expels a soft sigh and tugs the strap of his bag higher. This gym makes him uncomfortable enough, and Blaine's chill isn't helping at all. He doesn't understand it, because they've always been so interested in everything about each other and they've shared so many moments. Now, of all times, he thought Blaine would confide in him. Maybe even rely on him.

"Can I be honest? I'm getting this really weird feeling from you, like you're pulling away. I thought we agreed that staying away from each other isn't going to work."

Blaine sighs deeply and balls up his gloves in his fists. It would have been too simple for Kurt to leave and feel hurt – hurt enough to avoid Blaine maybe – so now he has to deal with this directly, and that's the last thing he wants, because it means they're going to fix it, and he'd wanted to break this bond that they have, for both their sakes.

"Didn't you hear what they said, Kurt? They think you _turned_ me."

"Turned …? Who cares what a bunch of Neanderthals think?"

"I do!" Blaine shouts, and then instantly deflates to the tender voice he always uses with Kurt. "If it puts you in danger, I do."

Kurt draws in a sharp breath and comes closer to Blaine. The hurt is gone from his eyes and replaced with that sparkle he gets sometimes – the one that Blaine doesn't dare name or he'll be crushed when he finds out he's wrong. Kurt's voice is high, scared when he speaks.

"When I saw you on the ground …. It was like I couldn't breathe."

"Hey. I'm okay."

The fight has gone out of Blaine entirely. Just like that, they're fixed, goddamn it. No, that's the wrong word. They're Blaine and Kurt. They can't break, not even when they try. Blaine gives in to the connection tugging him towards Kurt, and the ache in his chest turns into a contented purr. He feels alive with it, trembling with the hope of it.

"I never got the chance to thank you for what you did at the hospital."

"These are the things you do when you feel a certain way about someone."

"Yeah," Blaine breathes. They're standing so close together, he could reach out and touch Kurt, could caress his jaw, brush a thumb over his cheekbone, kiss his lips. But he won't for Kurt's own good. "A certain way."


	5. Stranger in a Strange Land

**ROSWELL**

**PART FIVE**

**STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND**

_November 10_

_This is what I've been thinking: will life ever go back to normal? Part of me wants safety, to go back to the way things used to be, to a life I can predict. And the other part of me wants to go somewhere else, into the unknown._

* * *

**PENDANT**

Kurt feels a shift in the atmosphere a few weeks after the accident – or was it an attack? – like their lives have settled into a new normal. A terrifying new normal where Blaine endures everything and more that Kurt has for years. The jocks take Blaine's sexuality as a personal insult. After all, if a guy could 'pass' they expect him to, and they make him pay if he doesn't.

Blaine, however, has no intention of 'passing,' and he's made that clear. He may not look it on the outside with his hipster clothes and masculine mannerisms (except when he gets excited and turns sassy), but he's definitely not sharing lingering looks with girls in the hallway. No, those are reserved for Kurt and Kurt alone.

"Why don't you two just go to the eraser room already?" Tina snaps.

Kurt stares at her. She's been in a bad mood for weeks, but she hasn't told him why. She sulks and lashes out for no reason. At least she's stopped bursting into tears twice a day.

"Tina, do you want to talk about anything?"

"What I want is for you and Blaine to stop eye-fucking –"

"Tina! Oh my God." Kurt glances around nervously to see if anyone heard. "What is wrong with you? You can't say things like that at school. And not just because it's crude and inappropriate."

The girl deflates and slouches against her locker. "I know, Kurt, I know. I'm sorry." She pinches the bridge of her nose. "I'm kind of a mess right now."

"Hence the offer to listen."

"I really can't, Kurt. And I can't tell you why not either. Can we just leave it at that?"

"Remember after I got shot? How you felt when you knew something was up with me, but I wouldn't talk to you?"

"Remember how you had the most solid reason ever not to tell me? I have the second-most solid reason ever. Trust me, Kurt, you'd be really disappointed if I told you everything. This isn't something you gossip about."

Kurt's brow furrows as he considers what he would consider off limits. But this is the girl who gave up show choir to support her mistreated friends. He trusts her.

"All right." The bells rings. "I'll see you at Blaine's later, right?"

"What?"

"So we can go through the things we found in the dome. Santana got them out of her hiding place that she swears rivals Jimmy Hoffa's. She left them at Blaine's this morning, so we should have a couple hours before his parents get home to go through it."

"Oh, right." Tina looks disconcerted, but nods. "Yeah, I'll see you there."

o

When Blaine pulls up in front of his house after school, his hopes of going through the papers Santana delivered this morning die. Police cars are parked in the driveway, and Sheriff Sylvester stands out front talking to his mom. Santana passes him a concerned look from the passenger seat before they climb out and race up the front walk.

"Mom! Are you okay? What happened?"

"I'm fine," Diane says, but she clutches at her chest still. "I stepped out for … an hour, maybe, to go to the store, and when I came back, I found all the commotion outside."

"The security alarm went off," the Sheriff explains. "The power was cut, so we got a call to come check it out."

"Nothing was stolen, though," Diane goes on.

Blaine feels a knot of dread form in his stomach. "I'd better check my room just to make sure." The Sheriff gives him a hard look. "I have a lot more electronics than anywhere else in the house."

Santana follows Blaine inside. She looks more shaken than he's ever seen her. The second they enter the bedroom, they know what's been taken. The box of papers shoved between the far side of bed and the wall is gone.

"They didn't come for the TV. Someone knew what we had, and they wanted it," Santana says grimly.

A knock on the door calls their attention, and they spin around to see Sheriff Sylvester standing there. Her eyes pass over the room like she's searching for incriminating evidence. She strolls inside without being invited and directs her attention back to the teenagers.

"I can only imagine what it must feel like to have you home broken into. It must feel like a real violation."

The words hang heavily over Blaine and Santana. They've broken into the Sheriff's personal property and stolen from her twice. Santana keeps her gaze steady and a forced grin turning up the corners of her mouth, but Blaine's eyes swivel to her. It's a mistake that the Sheriff takes as weakness. She descends on Blaine like a vulture.

"So, Mr. Anderson, what did they take from in here?"

"Nothing that I can see," he stammers.

"Really? None of your valuable electronics? Or maybe something a little less flashy? Maybe something that has value only to you – a _key_ to everything you hold dear?"

Blaine's mouth works, but he can't form words. The Sheriff's face darkens as her lips presses into a tight line. The appearance of his dad in the doorway saves Blaine from cracking under the intensity of her gaze.

"Since nothing is missing, Sheriff," Christian says, "we'll chalk this up to Patches having his own kind of fun again. It wouldn't be the first time he's pulled something like this around town."

The Sheriff has to agree and departs with a rueful look at Blaine. Christian watches her curiously, and then casts a similar look at his son. Blaine fights to keep his face blank, and eventually Christian backs down.

"Your boyfriend is outside. I would love to see if your mother could literally turn the color of a tomato, but it would be rude to leave Kurt alone with her for that long. You might want to come save him."

Santana glares at his dad's retreating back.

"Can you believe him? How changeable can a person be? First, he doesn't say anything when you come out to them. Then he tells your mom to drop it. Then he rebuilds a car to make you straight. Now he's pushing you at a boy? What the hell?"

But Blaine smiles at his dad's back. "That's the beauty of people, Santana. We can become better versions of ourselves. He's been really supportive since he met Kurt. I think maybe he regrets doing the whole car thing to shut my mom up."

"And we're back to you pushing your hopes and dreams onto other people's motives."

"And we're still stuck on you believing that I alone, of all people the universe, can have good intentions. It's flattering that you think I'm that good, Santana. But it's limiting too. Other people than me can be good. I really should go rescue him from my mom."

Santana sits on the bed with her ankles crossed when Kurt and Tina follow Blaine back into his room. They briefly recap the break-in and the missing box of files. Tina sits down hard on the end of the bed, and Kurt places a tender consoling hand on Blaine's shoulder.

"Ms. Holliday," Tina surmises.

"It's time to get that bitch the hell out of our business," Santana adds.

"We have yet to come up with any kind of feasible plan that won't get us all arrested," Blaine points out. Santana starts to protest. "I'm sure your underboob has many fantastic qualities, but it's not the magic solution we need for this one."

Kurt looks away sharply to hide his grin, and Tina's lips twitch furiously. They're all on the verge of inappropriate laughter when Blaine tugs the pendant out of his shirt.

"And we have other concerns."

Tina gets up to hold the pendant in her palm and study the symbol. "That looks Native American. Where did you get it?"

"The dome."

Santana jumps up and crowds in. "I know that symbol. Why do I know that symbol?"

"Because you used to doodle it all over your papers when we were kids," Kurt answers. "We sat next to each other in third grade, remember? You were bored all the time – in hindsight, because you can speed read and have an eidetic memory. You drew this symbol on everything."

"Then we have to check this out," Tina says. "My dad works on the Mesaliko reservation all the time. I can go there with you and introduce you to some people I know there."

"Let's go," Santana says.

"No." The others stare at Blaine. "No one is going anywhere while we're being followed. We led Ms. Holliday to the dome and to the papers we found there. We're not leading her anywhere else. If this symbol is the key to everything, she can't be there. We figure out how to get rid of her, and then we go."

o

The window beside Blaine's desk creaks open just after he sits down to start on his Calculus homework. He tenses, and his eyes flash around the room for anything – other than his powers – he could use to defend himself. Before he can locate anything, however, Kurt topples through the window. Blaine jumps up from the chair and catches him before he can hit the floor.

"Wow. That's a lot higher up than it looks. How does Santana manage that? She's at least four inches shorter than me."

Blaine's lips turn up in a grin. "She jumps. Welcome back for the second time today. Was there something wrong with the doorbell?"

"No, but there was something wrong with your living room. I saw your mom watching TV."

Blaine sighs deeply and casts pained eyes at the floor. Kurt touches his shoulder lightly in the same gentle, consoling way he had earlier today. Blaine wants to step forward, lean against Kurt, and feel the warmth of his embrace. He wants it so badly he has to physically lean back to fight the force pulling him to Kurt.

"I'm –"

"Don't you dare apologize. I actually did come here for a reason." He takes a breath. "I didn't say anything before because I didn't want to get the others involved, but … I'm going to the reservation."

Blaine's head snaps up. "No, Kurt."

"Trust me, I'm an excellent spy. I used to go on spying missions for glee club all the time."

Blaine's mouth twitches. He can almost see Kurt trying to blend in, and failing spectacularly, of course, because Kurt Hummel could never pass for a wallflower.

"I'm sure you were an adorable spy, but something could happen to you if you go. We can go after we get rid of Ms. Holliday."

Kurt's lighthearted assurances fade into solemnity. "And something could happen to you if I don't. Today, they came for the papers. What if they come for you next? We might never be able to get rid of Ms. Holliday. We need to find out what all of this means."

"Thanks for the offer, but no."

"Blaine, you saved my life. That's what started all of this, brought on all of this suspicion. If something happened to you, I couldn't live with that. Let me do this one thing," he pleads earnestly.

"Kurt …."

With each rebuttal, Kurt's will grows stronger. Blaine has never seen him quite like this, so strong and forceful. He's always been so caring and sensitive around Blaine, but that's their connection summoning them towards what they both want, but won't admit. Or Blaine won't admit it. Kurt has so many times. He's braver in that regard, more willing to put his heart on the line.

"I didn't come here for permission, Blaine. I came here for the pendant. If you don't give it to me, I'll just draw it and go anyway."

This side of Kurt is intense, masculine in the most conventional sense, and so, so sexy. Blaine closes those last few inches between them. The air is alive with electricity. It raises the hairs on his arms and stirs up butterflies in his stomach. He tilts his head up slightly to meet Kurt's eyes as he lifts the pendant from around his neck and slips it over Kurt's head.

They're so close Blaine can feel Kurt's breath across his lips. He smells of citrus and sugar. Kurt's eyes flutter closed, and Blaine could stretch up just an inch more and kiss him, taste the citrus and sugar and the boy he's dreamed about every night since he saw into Kurt's soul. He slides his hands around Kurt's neck, fingers gliding through soft hair, thumbs stroking over cheekbones.

"Be careful," he says softly. "I'd hate myself forever if anything happened to you."

Kurt's eyes open. His cheeks hold beautiful color, and his blue-green eyes travel over Blaine's face, but especially to his lips. His tongue darts out unconsciously, wetting the lips Blaine doesn't know how much longer he can resist. His body is alive with Kurt, desperate for his touch. It yearns for him at night, aches for him every morning, stirs for him with every sensual moment they share.

It's only a matter of time before he ruins everything. He'll only hurt Kurt in the end, but no person alive has the willpower to resist a pull this strong. Not forever.

"I will be," Kurt promises breathlessly.

* * *

**WARBLER**

Kurt has been to the Mesaliko reservation only once before during a field trip in the fifth grade. Tina's dad and a Mesaliko man had shown them some cave paintings that told an old Mesaliko myth. He remembers very little outside of the paintings, so when a building jogs his memory, he eases the truck to a stop in front. It appears to be a grocery store with rocking chairs on the porch out front. An elderly man with a quilt draped over his legs plays checkers with an Asian teenager in the navy and red blazer Kurt recognizes as the uniform for a private boys' school in Roswell.

He glances over his shoulder uncertainly. He expects to see a black sedan tailing him, but there had been nothing in his rearview mirror as he left the city limits or during the fifteen minute drive to the reservation.

"Can I help you find something?"

Kurt turns again to see the teenager gazing at him curiously, but all Kurt can process for a moment is that his red checkers seem set up deliberately to allow the old man to double jump and get crowned. He likes the boy immediately. A smile replaces his apprehension.

"Actually, if you could help me find some_one_ that would fantastic. I have something that I think might be Mesaliko, and I hoped someone here could tell me if it is or not."

Kurt draws out the pendant from where it still hangs around his neck and holds it steady for the other boy to look at. He frowns deeply at the symbol on the pendant, and glances down at the old man. The old man makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat and snatches at the pendant. Kurt draws away, cupping the painted stone protectively.

"Give me that," the boy demands.

"No."

"Who are you? Where did you get this?"

The boy glares at Kurt with stone cold eyes and an immovable expression. Kurt thinks he must have accidentally violated a Mesaliko tradition or taboo by wearing the pendant. Or maybe the pendant itself is something ancient or sacred. He fumbles an explanation and apology.

"We just found this."

"We?"

Kurt sucks in a breath and shakes his head quickly. "No, just me."

"Who else knows about this?"

"No one. Just … what does this mean to you? Please tell me."

The boy breathes out deeply through his nose and glances down at the old man again who makes a few attempts at speaking which only come out as cut-off words. A stroke, Kurt realizes too late, as he notices the lax muscles on the left side of his face. It's the boy who answers.

"This symbol … it brings death."

o

"Hold up," Santana snaps. "You let Kurt go to the reservation to find out about our pendant?"

"That's … That's not what we're talking about right now," Blaine says.

Santana starts to retort, and from her expression it's likely a string of insults concealing a harsh truth, but Kurt cuts her off. If they get distracted by hurt feelings, they'll never get around to the point of why he asked everyone to meet him at the Crashdown after closing.

"We're supposed to come back tomorrow. Wes – that's the guy I told you about – said he would explain more then. He wanted me to come alone again, but … like you said, Santana, it's your past."

"So we have to make sure Ms. Holliday isn't tailing us tomorrow night."

"And how, exactly, do we slip an FBI tail?" Tina asks.

"Actually, Kurt and I have a plan …."

o

"I think Santana is going to hate us forever," Kurt remarks.

He glances across the borrowed car at Blaine in the passenger seat. He can just make out a grimace through the darkness. Their plan had been standard misdirection. Kurt and Blaine went to see _Love Story_ at the revival theatre, but left through the back exit where Tina waited with a car. She had convinced her mom to let her borrow the SUV instead of the Jetta, so Kurt and Blaine left Roswell in a vehicle Ms. Holliday had never seen them in before. Meanwhile, Santana played the bait by driving Blaine's Corvette around town.

"At least it worked. She texted that Ms. Holliday is parked across the street from Breadstix watching her. Also, she says: 'This is bullshit. I hate you.'"

When Kurt parks in front of the grocery store, Wes steps off the porch with a deep scowl on his face.

"I told you to come alone," he hisses.

"It's okay. This is my friend, Blaine. He's actually the one who found the pendant."

Wes considers Blaine for a long moment. Kurt has never seen such a judgmental look in his life. Wes takes in everything from Blaine's dark wash jeans to his styled curls. Blaine seems to pass inspection, because Wes turns and motions for them to follow him around the side of the building.

"It's a little bit of a walk. Stay close to me."

Wes leads them across a dusty field toward the desert beyond the edge of the reservation. Kurt trips over scraggly plants twice when the electric glow from streetlamps fails, but Blaine catches him. The sky awash with stars is their only light until Wes takes out his cell phone and uses the flashlight app. Blaine glances nervously at Kurt and lifts his eyebrows as if to ask if they should really trust anyone who leads two gay teenagers toward an unknown, isolated part of the desert.

"Umm, Wes?" Kurt begins.

"Almost there," Wes calls over his shoulder.

They come to a rock formation and hear the sound of trickling water. Blaine perks up and glances around sharply. His mental map of Roswell pinpoints their location somewhere around where Fraiser Woods meets the Mesaliko reservation. They've easily walked a mile and a half already. He almost protests going any further, but Wes motions to an opening in the cliff face.

"Everything you need to know is inside the cave. There are paintings."

Blaine remembers the cave painting from field trips, and Kurt's nod says he does as well. Wes leads the way into the cave. Wes and Blaine can walk upright beneath the low arch of the opening, but Kurt has to duck down a few inches. The ceiling rises a few feet in, and he straightens up.

"So where are these paintings?" Blaine asks.

Blaine's back is to Kurt when the light goes out. For a second, he thinks Wes's cell has died, but then he hears the rustle of clothes to his left and a muffled scream from Kurt. Blaine reacts on pure instinct. His brain processes that Kurt is in danger, that this is a trap after all, and his body reacts. Glowing light shines from his hands and illuminates the cave.

Wes's flashlight app flicks on again, and Kurt appears at Blaine's side. He looks rumbled and shaken, but no worse for wear. Blaine runs his hands over Kurt's face and down his arms.

"Are you okay?" he worries.

Kurt nods, but looks to Wes in bewilderment. Blaine rounds on him, fists and jaw clenched. Wes only grins widely.

"Sorry about that, Kurt," he says jovially. "You passed the test, Blaine. Come with me."

Blaine doesn't even know how to react to that. He considers punching Wes anyway, but the other boy turns and walks deeper into the cave. Kurt reaches out for his hand and gently tugs him until they're following Wes again.

"My grandfather used to know someone like you," Wes explains as they walk. "He didn't have a chance to tell me before his stroke a few years ago, but he gave me his journal. He'd written everything down and kept the secret to himself. Even my mom – his daughter – doesn't know. He called the man the Stranger. I didn't really believe him … until tonight.

"I really am sorry about that back there. My grandfather can't speak anymore, but he made it clear absolutely no one can see this cave unless they pass the test he wrote about in his journal. Now that I know it's all real, I can see why he's so insistent."

"This Stranger. Do you know where I can find him?" Blaine asks eagerly.

"My grandfather hasn't seen him in forty years. But I do have one more thing I can show you."

Wes stops in front of a wall full of black paintings. All three boys hold up their phones to cast light onto the stone. The symbols appear similar to the pendant. Kurt removes it from around his neck and holds it up to the rock wall. He finds its match and glances over his shoulder at Blaine.

"These aren't Mesaliko," Blaine says. "There's nothing like these cave paintings in other parts of the reservation."

"They're not Mesaliko," Wes confirms. "The Stranger drew these. He said one day he would come back, but he hasn't. When he left, he thought someone was trying to kill him. He made my grandfather promise not to show anyone unless they passed the test."

"Blaine," Kurt says softly. "Maybe it's a message for you."

Blaine worries his lip between his teeth as he scans the paintings left behind by the mysterious alien – probably the same one who killed that man in 1969. None of the symbols make sense to him, but he feels like they should. It's almost like he's looking at the English alphabet in the mirror. He knows the letters, but it takes too long to decipher the words.

"Can we come back again and study these?"

Wes shakes his head. "I don't think that's a good idea, Blaine. No one knows about these, but someone will suspect if they see you returning here too much. You should take pictures of the paintings."

Kurt turns off his flashlight app and begins snapping pictures of the paintings. He takes an image of each individual symbol and of clusters so they can piece together the whole cave wall in the exact order the Stranger painted it.

"Thank you for your help, Wes," Blaine says. "I don't need to tell you how important it is that no one finds out about this. Or about me."

"Your secret's safe with me. My grandfather kept it for forty years, and he entrusted it to me. I won't betray him or you. Good luck with figuring this out."

"Then I guess this is goodbye."

Wes laughs. "Not even close. My grandfather protected the Stranger for forty years, and now he's passed that responsibility onto me. I know I don't look Mesaliko, but I am. Traditions can't be diluted by blood. When a Mesaliko elder gives you a responsibility, it's an honor to see it through. You're stuck with me, Warbler Blaine."

Blaine's brow furrows. "Warbler?"

"Would you rather have me call you Stranger 2.0 in my journal?"

Blaine's mouth twitches. Despite everything – the suspicion, the tricks – he likes Wes. He's just found out aliens exist, and his reaction is to befriend and joke around with one. Blaine feels comfortable and safe around Wes. He can't pinpoint why, but he just knows they'll be protected with Wes on their side.

"Warbler works just fine," he says. "But I'm still curious about why."

"I recommend a good ornithology encyclopedia."

"Or a Dalton Academy yearbook and a thorough analysis of Wes's personality," Kurt adds. "You're Head Warbler, aren't you?"

"Charged with the protection and guidance of them all," Wes confirms.

After they exchange phone numbers and say their goodbyes (for now), Kurt and Blaine head back towards Roswell. Santana and Tina will be waiting at the Crashdown for them again. It's not quite closing time, so they'll slide into a booth and speak in low voices about what they found out.

But for now, Blaine processes everything he's learned tonight. Kurt holds his hand across the console in a silent reminder that he's here and never leaving, no matter what the symbols say or where they lead.

* * *

**EXPOSED**

Kurt slips his phone back into his bag and finds a table in the courtyard for lunch. Early November has been mild, and they've taken to eating outside every day. He's the first one outside today since Santana takes an extra long shower after gym, and Blaine and Tina's Spanish class went long. He's only just sat down and popped the lid on his pasta salad when a shadow falls over his lunch.

"Hey, Kurt! Long time, no talk. Why haven't you been to my office lately?"

The fork falls from Kurt's hand, but he schools his features before turning his face up to Ms. Holliday. She's good, he'll give her that. She smiles like she has no ulterior motives and puts on a laidback attitude, but he knows she probably wears black power suits and severe buns when she's in the field office or Washington.

"I've been busy with school work and the Crashdown, I guess. College and paying for college are on my mind all the time these days."

"College, that's exactly what I came over here to talk to you about. I know how competitive NYADA is, which is why … drum roll, please … I talked Figgins into hiring me to direct the school musical!"

Ms. Holliday holds up her hand for a high-five, but Kurt is stunned speechless. If any other teacher in the world told him that, he would ramble off a litany of suggested musicals – all with him as the lead, of course. But this is the woman who wants to imprison and experiment on Blaine. He would give up any role to get her far, far away from Roswell.

"You're stunned, right? I know. Me too. I can't believe he went for it, but he did. So here's what I think, Kurt. _West Side Story_. The classic musical about star-crossed lovers from different worlds. The innocent young girl dreaming of her great love, the starry-eyed young man who defies his heritage for his love, and the bloody gang war their love creates."

Kurt feels sick. Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer are replaced by himself and Blaine. And the ending …. A shudder flies up his spine. He'll never think of _West Side Story_ the same again.

"Or _The Music Man_," Kurt answers smoothly. "The confidence man who blows into town and wins over the people's hearts and minds with fear tactics so he can swindle them out of what they love most."

Ms. Holliday arches a delicate eyebrow. "Well, there's no denying you'd be a fantastic Harold Hill if we adjusted the octaves a little. Why don't you come by my office later and we'll talk about it some more? I think your friends are finally through the lunch line."

Kurt follows her line of sight across the courtyard where Blaine and Tina stand with their trays in hand and eyes fixed on Kurt and Ms. Holliday. When she leaves, they hurry over. Kurt takes a long drink of his water to calm down the nervous churning in his stomach. By the time he's ready to fill them in, Santana has appeared as well.

"Great. Now she's bribing her way into our lives," Santana grumbles. "There's no way Noel Coward is turning down a lead in a musical."

"Actually, I am," Kurt snaps. "I'm not spending any more time with her than I have to. I'm good under pressure, but she's FBI-trained. I have no chance against her."

"Don't worry, Kurt. We'll figure out some way to get you into NYADA," Blaine promises.

"Oh, don't mind me. I'll just be over here with my empty CV figuring out how to get into NYADA alone," Tina quips. Blaine begins an apology. "Not directed at you, Blaine. I'm not even hungry anymore."

Tina stalks off towards the school, and a minute later Santana marches off towards the bleachers. Blaine shrugs, and Kurt is too preoccupied with the knots in his stomach to put much thought into why the girls are avoiding each other.

"I'll tell her I'm not doing the musical after school today. I just want to get it over with."

"What's your excuse going to be?" Blaine asks. "You have your heart set on NYADA, and if you turn down what is ostensibly a musical thrown just so you can play the lead and put it on your CV, it'll look suspicious."

Kurt sighs deeply and rolls his eye up towards the sky, like a mystical answer waits for him in the clouds. As he looks back down, he catches sight of the perfect excuse. Mr. Schuester strolls through the courtyard waving at his favorite students, and Kurt hits upon an idea. Kurt has a lot of problems with Mr. Schue's teachings methods, but at the end of the day, he's fought for glee club and arts education at West Roswell High.

"Loyalty," Kurt says. "Mr. Schue has to be dying inside teaching nothing but biology. If I play all the cards right, I might even get to play a lead like I was born to play, have a chance at getting into NYADA, and all without spending every waking minute under Ms. Holliday's beady little eye."

Blaine narrows his eyes. "While that plan is definitely genius mastermind level, Kurt, there are about fifty ways it could backfire."

"Have my plans ever lead us wrong before?"

"Yes."

Kurt comes up short. He knows it true, but he didn't expect kind, people-pleasing, in-love-but-won't-admit-it Blaine to call him on it. And _why_ does that make Blaine so much more alluring? Kurt flashes him a sultry look that makes Blaine's eyebrows dance.

"Well," he says, batting his lashes, "we'll just have to see if my genius mastermind plan works out this time, won't we?"

Blaine nods, but absently. He's too focused on staring at Kurt's mouth with his own hanging open. Kurt stands up from the table, careful to strategically place his messenger bag in front of him, and flounces away. He sneaks a glance over his shoulder, and, yes, Blaine is definitely staring at his ass. He bounces happily and tosses his chin into the air.

He's on top of the world, and noth –

It's like the icy cold of the cherry slushie thrown in his face can seep into muscle and freeze him in place. The fierce headache that follows doesn't quite drown out the cackles of the departing jocks.

o

Kurt arrives at Ms. Holliday's office – also called the janitor's closet – ten minutes after the final bell rings. She seems surprised to see him so soon, but motions him into a seat across from her desk, which looks suspiciously like a fold-up table.

"So, let's get to work on this musical!"

"Actually, Ms. Holliday, I came to tell you that I can't do the musical," Kurt says delicately. He is an actor, after all, and he has to do this right. "I'm really excited to do a musical that actually gets produced this year, but … my allegiance is to Mr. Schue. He's the one who rebooted glee club, introduced me to my best friends, and ultimately made me believe I really could get out of this town and to the bright lights of Broadway. It doesn't feel right to do a musical he isn't directing."

Ms. Holliday cocks her head to the side. She eyes him appraisingly for a silent moment that stretches too long. Blaine's caution that this could blow up in this face echoes in his memory.

"That's very noble, Kurt. I'm sure you do feel that way, but I don't think that's the whole truth. Let's be honest with each other. You're not the kid you appear to be on paper. I was your guidance counselor for a week. I've seen your records, and they don't match what I'm hearing and what I've observed."

Kurt draws in a breath through his nose and purses his lips. He hatches escape plans while simultaneously thinking how we can spin this conversation when he relays it to Blaine so he can uphold his 'genius mastermind' title. He thinks that one is damn near impossible.

"I know, Kurt. I know everything."

"What's 'everything'?"

Ms. Holliday shifts around in her chair. She ends up with her arms crossed. It looks so much more imposing because he knows she's an FBI agent, not a substitute.

"I know that you've missed class more this semester than in the past three years combined, that you've been at the scene of several suspicious events, that you've made some new friends who appear to have led you astray from your ambitions. I know that none of you have been punished for any of it yet. I wonder what admissions boards would think if this ended up on your permanent records."

o

An hour later, Kurt storms into the Crashdown. Blaine, Santana, and Tina are waiting for him at their usual booth. Tina has work in half an hour, and she's already in her uniform. Kurt needs to change for his shift too, but he's too angry to think about that right now. He slams his bag down on the table, making Santana jump and stare at him.

"The bitch is going down," he proclaims. "No one blackmails Kurt Hummel and gets away with it."

Blaine and Tina exchange nervous glances across the table, but Santana lights up like Christmas has come early. She motions Kurt into the booth.

"Furious is a good color on you, Hummel. Please, share this plan of yours."

"I'm not sure we should be planning anything," Blaine says. "She's FBI, you guys. We're a bunch of kids."

"It's time to stop avoiding her and sitting around thinking about what to do," Kurt insists. "It's time to _do something_."

Blaine looks like his puppy has just been kicked. He drops his eyes and turns away, and Kurt feels terrible about being the cause of it, especially so soon after their flirty moment over lunch. He knows he's probably canceling it out, but there comes a time when lines must be drawn.

"Hear, hear," Santana says. "So what's the plan?"

"That depends."

"On?"

"Whether Snixx feels like coming out to play."

Santana throws her arms up in the air. Blaine has lost the kicked puppy look. He's livid, and he's not bothering to hide it. Splotches of red paint his cheeks, and his jaw is tight.

"I can't believe that you, of all people, would do this. We've talked about this, Kurt. We had an agreement."

"And I kept up my end of the bargain, Blaine. I came to you, and I respected that you wanted to wait. But the time for waiting and thinking is over. This has gone so far beyond watching us. She's threatening to sabotage our futures, she's openly threatening us. I'm not going to sit on the sidelines and watch it happen."

Their voices are rising and drawing attention from nearby tables. Tina tries to shush them with hand gestures, and even Santana cottons on that they're getting too vocal for a public place, but she can't get a word in edgewise.

"I never said we should," Blaine returns hotly. "But, God, she's _FBI_. Does no one else realize how bad this could get if we screw it up?"

"That's what you're always so afraid of. Can't you see that you're screwing up by _not doing anything_?" Kurt accuses.

The anger vanishes like fire turning to ash. Blaine crumples in on himself. He looks like he wants to speak, but can't. Instead, he jumps up from the booth and stalks towards the exit.

"Blaine," Kurt calls.

Santana grabs his arm and keeps him seated. She shakes her head when he flashes her a glare.

"Not cool, you guys," Tina scolds.

She runs after Blaine, leaving Kurt and Santana alone in the booth.

"The thing about being friends with Blaine," Santana says quietly, "is that sometimes you have to save him from himself. If we leave it up to him, we'll be sitting ducks until one day his temper snaps and we go in there half-assed and get ourselves locked up. We're doing the right thing, Kurt. He'll see that and thank us for it."

She can see that Kurt's not listening. He's too distressed by Blaine's epic diva storm-out. She snaps her fingers in front of his eyes. "Come on. Focus. We have a diabolical plan to unleash."

o

Tina catches up to Blaine as he's climbing into his car. She takes him by the elbow and guides him away from the door.

"You shouldn't be driving when you're upset. Let's go for a walk."

"You have work," he says, gesturing at her uniform.

"I think Kurt knows to cover me."

They walk in silence down the block towards the park where they wander down a footpath lined with flowers until they find a bench. Tina is content to sit beside Blaine while he works through the hurt clouding his eyes. His fists are shoved deep into his pockets, and he regards the ground more than the sky, but he slowly comes out of his funk.

"It's not that they disagree with me," he says defensively. "I'm not some petulant kid who thinks everyone has to share my opinion all the time. It's just … the way they disagreed, so gleefully. It's like, 'I'm sitting right here. No need to project your scorn.'" He breathes out around a deep frown. "It just …."

"Really fucking hurts," Tina finishes.

Blaine nods morosely. "I know Santana can be insensitive, but I never thought Kurt would be so blatant about how much he despises me."

Tina makes a startled sound. She rubs his shoulders consoling. "No, Blaine. He might not be thrilled with your opinion, but he could never despise you."

"I can't really separate the two, I guess."

"I have that problem too."

They fall into silence for a few minutes. When she senses he's ready to listen, Tina ventures to share an insight she hopes will ease some of Blaine's worry.

"No one is at their best when they're angry. Ms. Holliday threatened you, Blaine, so of course Kurt's angry, but not at you. It just happened that this time you were the one sitting in front of him, so you got the full force of his wrath. I'm sure he didn't mean what he said."

"I think he did. I just … I wanted so badly for Kurt to accept everything about me, and he obviously doesn't. And why should he? The star and the wallflower can't have a happy ending. That's why I can't give in to these things I feel. Whether we're together or not, he'll get hurt."

Blaine looks so crushed it brings tears to Tina's eyes. She fights them valiantly, but they skip down her cheeks anyway.

"I'll be honest, I don't entirely understand that. If you feel a certain way about someone, you should be with them. 'It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all,' right?"

"No," he says calmly. "It's better to get the pain over with so you don't live with a knife hanging over your head."

She frowns. "You don't really seem to be following that advice very well."

"That's why we hurt so much."

o

Kurt isn't entirely sure this is the best idea, but the wheels are already in motion. He's once again teamed up with Santana and rushing in headlong to some insane situation he feels only partially in control of. He can't get the image of Blaine's sorrowful eyes out of his head, and it's throwing him off balance. He considers calling the whole thing off, but Santana sends him a text saying she's in position. If he backs out now, she'll go through with it on her own and probably get caught in the process.

From his place by the vending machines, he can see clear down the back corridor of the school, but he hears the clicking of high heels long before he sees Ms. Holliday. He sends Santana a text giving her the all clear and steps out from behind his hiding place.

"Ms. Holliday?"

The woman turns. She's surprised to see him after school again and suspicious. It's nearly six o'clock, far too late for a student without an extracurricular to be loitering around campus.

"Can we talk for a minute? I've thought about what you said yesterday."

"Of course. Let's go to my office."

Kurt doesn't budge. He tries to play it off as preoccupation with what he needs to say, and it seems to work, at least for the time being.

"The thing is, I'm not worried about me right now. I mean, I know I've done some things wrong, but if I cooperate …."

"Nothing will happen to you, Kurt."

He sighs. "That's what I thought. But, I'm worried about Blaine. If I tell you everything, what happens to him?"

Ms. Holliday considers him for a long minute. "Just tell me everything that you know, and we'll go from there. Let's go back to my office so you can write it down."

Kurt's eyes dart up to the clock between the restroom placards. He and Ms. Holliday haven't been speaking for more than forty-five seconds. There's no way that will have been enough time for Santana. Yes, she'd thumbed through a computer science textbook at the library and memorized it in about thirty seconds flat, but one can only learn so much from textbooks.

"It's just," Kurt stalls, "I'm not sure if this is really the right thing to do. Blaine is my friend, and I kind of feel like I'm throwing him under the bus so I can get into NYADA. I'm driven, but that's Rachel Berry level of psychopathic ambition."

Ms. Holliday narrows her eyes slightly. She caught his glance at the clock. _Shit._

"Let's continue this conversation in my office."

"Please, can't we just talk about this a little more before I sign a written confession?"

The FBI agent spins on her heel and marches double-time towards her office/janitor's closet. Kurt is hot on her heels, fumbling for his phone to warn Santana to get out of there, but they arrive at the door before he's even pulled up his messaging screen.

When Ms. Holliday opens the door, Santana looks up from behind the desk. She leans back in the chair with her hands folded in her lap and a smug expression on her face. She's positively bursting with glee when she rotates Ms. Holliday's laptop. Kurt can't believe what he's seeing: a navy blue log-in screen bearing the FBI logo.

"As I understand it," she begins, "when there's incontrovertible proof an undercover agent has been made, she generally gets her ass reassigned somewhere far, far away."

Ms. Holliday's mouth presses into a thin line. She picks up her briefcase from beside the desk and begins collecting her things. Santana edges around the desk to join Kurt by the door.

"If you think you've just helped yourselves, you're wrong," Ms. Holliday says. "You're playing with something very dangerous. This isn't going to end just because I'm gone. I was on your side. I hope your friend Blaine doesn't end up in the wrong hands without me here."

* * *

**THE BALANCE, PART I**

The bell over the Crashdown door jangles as Blaine and Santana enter. It's just after the dinner rush, so no one pays any attention to the bouncing bell at this hour. They find the sole empty booth and slide in across from each other.

"Do we have to eat here?" Santana asks.

Ever since she and Kurt proved themselves supremely correct about running off Ms. Holliday, things have been even chillier between her and Tina, and she hadn't thought that was possible.

"I'm really in the mood for Men-in-Blackberry Pie. Why? Is something wrong?"

"Compared to nuclear winter? No. Can we please leave? I'll buy you a whole bakery."

"What's going on?"

She shakes her head. Kurt and Tina approach the table with a red plastic cup full of fizzing soda each. Kurt sets his cup down in front of Blaine and offers him a hopeful grin that Blaine almost returns, but in a distant, guarded way. Kurt looks so distressed by it that Santana expects waterworks at any moment.

"Cherry cola with lime. On the house," Kurt says.

Tina says to Santana, "Yours is a dollar twenty-five."

Santana rolls her eyes, but it only earns her a snarl from Tina. At some point, she has to get over it, right? Unlike Blaine who can't keep himself away from Kurt no matter how much agony it causes both of them, Santana is perfectly capable of resisting Tina. She just has to hold out a little longer.

"While we're all in the same vicinity, I think we should talk about going to see that Wes kid again. I want to see those cave paintings myself. Now that we don't have the FBI on us anymore, I think this is the perfect opportunity."

Kurt goes still, and Blaine refuses to meet her eyes. It's so obvious there's something she doesn't know it's insulting they're not falling all over their apologies.

"Are you kidding me?" she demands. "Not a week ago, you were up in arms because Kurt and I solved a problem, and this whole time you've been keeping information from me? What don't I know?"

"It's not like that, Santana," Blaine starts. "There was a lot going on. Ms. Holliday was all over us. I really was going to show you, but things got away from me. We took pictures of the paintings. I've put together a mosaic on my computer."

"That was a week ago. What else haven't you told me?"

"Santana, just …," Blaine sighs. "I'll show you the mosaic. I'll introduce you to Wes, okay?"

"Then let's go."

"I can't." Blaine glances up at Kurt. "Kurt and I have to finish our biology report."

"Speaking of … I'll finish up with my last table and meet you upstairs."

Tina says a sweet goodbye to Blaine, ignores Santana, and goes back to waiting her tables. Santana stares at Blaine until he starts to fidget.

"What?" he snaps.

"Nothing. I'm just so overwhelmed with joy that I get to watch the gay teen mating dance begin again," she sasses. "I get that you like him and that you're trying to fix whatever the hell you two broke last week. But, God, I cannot believe that our past is taking a backseat to him _again_."

"That's not –"

"You're doing 'homework' you could finish in your sleep instead of showing me important information about our past – _my past_. I am so sick of this game you two play with each other. I don't care anymore if you fight or fuck. Just do it already so you can clear your head and figure out what's really important here."

Santana leaves without paying for her soda. Blaine can cover it, and she needs the long walk home to clear her head. Everything is upside down. It used to be that Blaine trusted her – and only her – with everything. Now he "forgets" to tell her something monumental like that he has pictures of the key to unlocking their past.

She kicks a rock and sends it flying into the street. It doesn't relieve any of her anger. Not even when she imagines it's Kurt she's kicking. She knows Kurt isn't the issue or even Blaine trusting Kurt. Allowing those him and Tina into their inner circle has actually helped in some ways.

No, the real issue is that Blaine doesn't trust her anymore. And she doesn't get that at all. Yeah, she's made some snap decisions without consulting him, but he's done the same thing. When he does it, it's called being decisive, but when she does it, it's reckless.

Well, she's done with double standards.

The Mesaliko reservation is too far outside of town for Santana to walk, so she takes the Corvette parked in front of the Crashdown. That's what Blaine gets for giving her a set of spare keys "just in case." Whether they're working on biology or the male anatomy, he'll be at Kurt's for a while.

She parks in front of the grocery store Kurt mentioned the first time he told them about the reservation. A pre-teen Asian girl in a school uniform regards her curiously as she mounts the stairs to the patio in front of the store. The kid can't be more than thirteen, and Santana ventures to guess she's related to Wes. How many Chinese teenagers who attend private school can there be on a Native American reservation?

"I'm looking for someone named Wes."

The girl cocks an eyebrow at Santana, and she knows that look. She wore it herself not too long ago. It's the conceit and disgust all teenage girls view the world through until they get to high school and the HBIC knocks them off their high horse. Santana never had the chance to be HBIC, but she's more than willing to take the role right now.

"And you are …?" the girl asks.

"Someone looking for Wes."

"He's busy in the tent. It's a sacred ritual. You can't go in unless someone invites you."

"So invite me."

"It's a spiritual sweat."

Santana has had enough of the girl's sneers and eye rolls to last a lifetime.

"Okay, here's the deal, Asian Stacy. Wes has information that I need, and I'm not in the mood to argue about it with an entitled wannabe bitch in a hideous pleated skirt. You can scoff and roll your eyes and give me as much attitude as you can muster, but you're a privileged little prep school girl, and I'm from West Roswell Heights. I guarantee you'll lose any bitch-off you start. I will choke you with your bobby socks if you don't take me to Wes right now."

The girl stares in awe. Santana straightens up and brushes her hair off her forehead. She knew she had it in her. It's a shame she never got the cheerleading outfit to go with the attitude.

"I'll take you to the sweat. I'm Lily, by the way. Wes is my brother."

Without the attitude, Lily has a sweet voice and kind face. Santana's rage has bought and paid for a fangirl. Lily is full of information about the sweat and Wes and Mesaliko traditions, but Santana isn't listening closely. She just wants to see Wes and find out about the cave paintings first hand.

The land slopes up from the rear of the grocery store, and they leave the road to step over rocks and tumbleweeds as they make their way to a large white tent. Firelight flickers where the open flap flutters in a slight breeze. Lily stops several yards away.

"I can't go any farther, but Wes is inside if you can't wait to see him."

Santana parts the tent flap and ducks into the sweat lodge. A dozen men sit around the steaming fire chanting and sweating. Wes narrows his eyes when she joins the circle. For a few minutes, they stare at each other. Wes looks away first. He ladles out some water from a wooden barrel and throws it on the rocks steaming in the fire. Smoke billows up from the rocks towards Santana. She reels away from the smoke and coughs into her forearm, but it doesn't ease the blockage in her throat. She can't take a breath. It feels like her lungs are stuck on the exhale.

Santana fights her way out of the tent and sucks in a deep, cool lungful of night air. Her head stops swimming instantly. She braces her hands on her knees and concentrates on drawing in one breath after the other.

"You probably shouldn't have gone in there," Lily says.

"No kidding. Tell Wes Blaine's going to call him, and he better not pull another stunt like that the next time I want to talk to him."

Santana climbs into the Corvette and speeds down the highway back towards Roswell. She starts to feel dizzy halfway back, curses Wes's stupid sweat, and floors the accelerator.

o

" … shading like this?"

Blaine leans over to see how Kurt is drawing the cells they'd viewed under the microscope in class and nods.

"Yeah, exactly. You're really good at drawing."

Kurt shrugs. "I learned how so I could design my outfits."

"Of course," Blaine chuckles.

Kurt looks close to saying something, and if Blaine had to guess, he'd say it would be a comment about how he hasn't heard Blaine laugh all week. He wishes Kurt would say it so they could have this conversation and be done with it. He hates the uncertainty between them. But Tina barges into his room before they can say anything else.

"We need you downstairs," she announces grimly.

Downstairs in the employee lounge, Santana sits on the couch with a glass of water in her hands. She looks pale, but otherwise all right. Tina pushes on the bottom of the glass, trying to raise it to Santana's lips.

"Drink some more water."

"I feel fine."

Tina feels her forehead and frowns. "But you were burning up a minute ago."

"I'm fine," Santana insists. "You didn't have to call Team Gay to check on me. I'm going home."

Santana tries to stand, but her legs give out under her. The glass hits the floor and shatters. Blaine jumps over the puddle of water and glass shards to catch her before she lands on the broken fragments. Her skin feels like fire, and she convulses in his arms. When she opens her eyes, Kurt lets out a cry of surprise. They're solid silver and glowing.

Blaine can only hold onto her. He's too scared and shocked to manage anything else.

"We need to get her upstairs," Tina says. "Kurt, can we use your room?" He nods distractedly, and Tina snaps her fingers in front of his eyes. "Come on, Kurt. Focus. Help me out here."

Tina goes in front opening all the doors while Kurt and Blaine carry Santana upstairs. When they have her in Kurt's bed, Tina produces a thermometer from the bathroom. The digital readout says her fever is 112-degrees.

"Oh my God," Blaine mumbles again and again. He sits on the edge of the bed and fusses over Santana: the way her hair lays on her forehead, the placement of her hands. There might as well be no one else in the room for all Blaine notices anyone or anything but Santana.

"We need ice and towels to cool her down," Tina tells Kurt. "Go get a bucket from the icemaker downstairs. I'll get the towels."

Tina arrives back in the room first. She finds Blaine tucking Santana under a thick quilt from the end of Kurt's bed.

"What are you doing?"

"She's really cold," Blaine says.

"Are you kidding? Her temperature was sky-high two minutes ago."

"I can't …. I don't know what what's going on." His voice sounds broken, and his eyes are red. "Nothing like this has ever happened before, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what's wrong with her."

Kurt comes back in the middle of Blaine's frantic rambling. He sets the ice bucket down on the ground and slowly approaches Blaine. His places a tentative hand on his shoulder, and when he doesn't pull away, eases down onto the bed behind him. He slides his hands around Blaine, hugging him close.

"What do you need?" he asks softly.

"I need her to be okay."

The tears ring through his voice. The worry brings Kurt and Tina to the edge of tears too, but Kurt blinks furiously against them and tightens his hold on Blaine's waist. He lays his temple against the back of Blaine's neck and tries to convey comfort through his touch alone.

"The first time I saw her after we came out of the pods was in the desert," Blaine says. His soft voice echoes through Kurt's chest. "The sky was bright with stars, and it was a full moon. I walked alone for a while, but I could sense someone else. She was following me. We couldn't speak, but we could … feel each other. She wanted to come to me, but she was scared. So she just watched me for a while. When she finally revealed herself, she was standing on this rock, like 'here I am, deal with me.' Typical Santana. Then I held my hand out for her, and we just looked at each other for a while, but she took my hand. She trusted me."

Tina watches from near the doorway. Despite all the hurtful words that have come between them in the past week, Kurt is holding Blaine. Kurt is holding Blaine the way Tina wants to hold Santana. It's not fair that Kurt gets to do that when Tina might never get the chance. Even if Santana miraculously gets better, she won't give in to her feelings the way Blaine has. All Tina wants is to comfort Santana in her time of need. But she can't. She never will. It's not fair.

Santana jerks under the quilt, and mumbled words fall from her lips. Blaine shifts towards her, and Kurt reluctantly lets him go.

"What are you saying? What are you trying to tell us? Please let me help you," he begs.

Santana manages to say one coherent word: _Wes_.

o

Kurt drives to the Mesaliko reservation. Blaine is too fired up to be entrusted with an automobile right now, so he sits in the passenger seat of his Corvette and stews while Kurt pushes the boundaries of how fast he's comfortable driving in a vintage car. He lets Blaine vent and get the threats out of his system. They both like Wes. He doesn't think Blaine will really physically hurt Wes unless he's still fuming when they arrive.

As it turns out, Wes is twice as furious as Blaine. He's waiting for them at the store when Kurt parks.

"You're not welcome here anymore!" Wes shouts. "You told someone what you found here!"

Kurt jumps in before this can escalate and nothing productive comes of this meeting. "We know she came here to see you. We need to know what happened to her."

"She was tested. She didn't pass," Wes says. "You betrayed my trust."

"I don't want your trust!" Blaine shouts.

He lunges towards Wes. Kurt catches him and tries to hold him back, but God, he's strong. He might be compact, but he's all lean muscle, and protective fury urges him to fight harder. If Kurt didn't have good resistance from dancing and a few inches on Blaine, he wouldn't have been able to keep him back.

"I want answers before my friend dies!" Blaine screams.

Wes's breath escapes in a puff. His anger turns into worry. Blaine stops fighting against Kurt's hold, although Kurt keeps a hand on his arm just in case.

"She's sick? You have to bring her here. We might not have much time."

* * *

**THE BALANCE, PART II**

"You're wondering if this will happen to me."

Kurt glances away from the road to Blaine in the passenger seat. The steady rush of night air through the open windows makes it difficult to hear his quiet statement, but Kurt has almost been listening for it since they left the reservation in a rush. Dread curls in his stomach when he imagines Blaine in Santana's position, and he's been thinking about it constantly since her eyes turned silver.

"No," he lies unconvincingly.

"I have." He ducks his head to stare at the hands clasped in his lap. "I've been wondering if this is just our lifecycle, if this is the way we die." He looks up again, eyes full of worry and regret. "I can understand if you have doubts. It's cruel feeling this way about someone and not knowing if they'll be here tomorrow."

Kurt's heart spasms in his chest. Despite everything they've said and avoided saying, Blaine thinks there is still a "we" and "us" to talk about. But the way it's been brought up twists his stomach.

"Is that what you think of me? That I'm going to run away?"

"Sometimes. I'm afraid one more weird thing will happen, and that's it. You won't want to deal with it anymore."

Kurt reaches across the center console and places his hand over Blaine's. He twists his palm up to lace his fingers through Kurt's. He stares at their hands, like they have happier answers than the one working its way up through Kurt's throat.

"Blaine, I will always want to be there for you, no matter what you're going through."

"Even though I'm screwing this up?"

Kurt breathes out sharply. "I shouldn't have said that. I was angry, and I lashed out at you. It wasn't fair to say. I don't want to push or guilt you into being with me. When that happens, it should be because you want to be with me."

"When," Blaine repeats on a sigh. "I don't know why you put up with me sometimes. Aside from all the alien weirdness, I'm not being very fair to you either. I keep saying we can't be together, but … it's kind of inevitable, right?"

Kurt can barely speak around the fireworks exploding in his chest.

"Is it?" he asks breathlessly.

"I realized something tonight. Have you ever had a moment when you're lost and the whole world feels upside down, and you feel like nothing can ever make it right again, then you fall into a certain someone's arms and you feel safe? I had that moment tonight, Kurt. And it's just like … 'Oh. There you are. I've been looking for you forever.'"

Kurt has no words. His mouth moves in tiny gestures that only gasp in tiny puffs of air. He has to watch the road, and they have to get back to Santana, but he can hardly consider anything beyond Blaine, Blaine, Blaine.

Blaine lifts Kurt's hand to his mouth and kisses the soft skin lightly.

o

Tina sits on the edge of the bed with tears in her eyes and her thumb stroking over Santana's cheekbone. Her skin clammy to the touch and pale. Tina has only left her side once to get more water that Santana didn't drink.

"How can you not see how much I care about you?"

Santana doesn't answer. She hasn't moved or made a sound in a half-hour. Tina glances at the clock every few minutes. Sometimes she checks multiple times in the same minute and glares at the digital alarm clock for not increasing its number.

Without warning, Santana's body convulses. Her limbs twitch, pulling her hand from Tina's, and her back arches. Inhuman sounds, like a wounded animal clawing itself away from the scene of its injury, spill from her mouth. Tina can only paw at her and try to let her know she's not alone. Her tears splash against the blue quilt thrown off Santana's burning body.

_Heat. Santana turns her face up towards the burning white sun. She squints against the blinding light and turns back to her surroundings. Flat tracks of desert roll out in three directions. A high, conical formation of rock is at her back. Around her feet, strange waxy red rocks form shapes familiar yet indecipherable. The sun races through the sky and nestles behind the horizon. Overhead, five stars forming a V awaken and brighten. The apex of the constellation points at her._

When Kurt and Blaine rush into the room again, they find Tina huddled against the far wall with her legs pressed to her chest and hands covering her tear-stained face. On the bed, Santana lies still and flat on her back. A membrane of thin, webbed fibers has grown over her cold, pale skin. Blaine's jaw trembles as he stumbles to the bed.

"We have to get her to Wes," Kurt says. "He said to meet him at the cave."

His voice sounds steadier than he feels, but someone has to keep their head if they're going to save Santana. He helps Tina climb to her feet, and then goes to Blaine. He gently rubs over Blaine's shoulder to get his attention.

"Help me carry her downstairs. Tina, go get your car."

Kurt drives Tina's car. Blaine sits in the backseat with Santana's upper body draped over his lap. In the rear view mirror, Kurt watches him comb his fingers through her hair. On the reservation, Kurt turns off the road and drives over the bumpy desert towards the cave. It's not the wisest move in a Jetta, but he thinks it's better than trying to carry Santana a mile and a half.

Wes waits at the cave entrance and leads them through the tunnel entrance to a dome-shaped cavern east of the paintings. A formation of stones fills up the small annex: a ring with three spokes. They lay Santana in the empty center.

"My grandfather's journal talks about one particular sweat. Some thought the man who used to live in this cave, the Stranger, was an evil spirit, so they invited him into the sweat to cleanse him. He reacted badly to something burned in the fire. He became ill immediately, and that's how they knew he wasn't like other men. Your friend, though, took much longer to become sick, so I didn't recognize her as one of you."

Wes opens a black drawstring bag and removes three stones. They're rough cut with chips and planes, about the size of a plum, and translucent peach in color. They sit surprisingly heavy in the palm with a texture more like velvet than rock.

"These stones are called the Balance. They come from wherever you come from. They conduct energy, which we'll need for the healing. The more we have, the faster the healing."

"Then why don't you join us?" Tina asks.

"Because the journal says the Balance can draw you in, can change your mind and body if you don't navigate it properly. I don't know Santana, and she doesn't know anything about me except I did this to her. It wouldn't be helpful if I joined you."

After they each have accepted their stone, they circle the formation and take their places at one of the three spokes. Wes has one final instruction before he backs out of the annex and goes to wait by the cave paintings.

"To activate the stones, hold them in your hands until your energy activates the stone's energy. Clear your mind, and don't change the way you feel about your friend."

With deep breaths and nervous glances at each other, they cup the stones in their palms and hold out their arms towards Santana's prone form. Clearing the mind is difficult when it's a directive, and it takes several minutes before the stones begin to glow with a bright, white light.

_The strange symbols on the ground vanish in a disjointed movement. Santana stands at the center of a stone circle. Her friends walk towards her over the wheel spokes._

_Kurt keeps his distance, but meets her eye. He says nothing, but his eyes speak more than words can. I tried to take care of him while you were gone, but I'm so relieved you're back now._

_Tina glides forward like a dream, all smiles and glowing happiness. She draws Santana into a deep kiss full of passion and caring. I'm still here. I know you want this, and so do I._

_Blaine throws his arms around her and squeezes until she can't breathe. Please, please, please don't ever do this again. Don't leave me alone. I know we fight, but it's because you're my sister and we're supposed to. I love you._

In the cave, the glow burns white hot.

_A small child climbs on top of the conical rock formation. Her black hair is matted with sticky fibers from the birthing pod she's walked out of. She stands proud and tall, with her hands on her hips and her chin jutting out. Down on the ground, a small boy pauses. He's been padding across the desert for an hour. Dirt cakes his sticky, bare feet. He turns and sees the girl high above him. He holds out his hand. The girl considers him. She reaches out for him._

Santana's eyes fly open, and she sits up with a gasp. Blaine releases a cry of delight and rushes forward to her. As he steps off the rock circle, the connection between the stone breaks, and the glow disappears. He latches his arms around her neck and squeezes her until she's laughing and slapping at his back.

"I missed you too. Now let me go before I suffocate. I don't think those stones could bring me back from that."

Blaine pulls back and regards her seriously. "What happened?"

Her smile flickers and fades as memories of her visions return. She uses Blaine as leverage to stand up and motions for everyone to hand over their stones.

"I went someplace, and I saw things. Give me your rocks."

Wes waits at the mouth of the annex with the final two stones he'd kept in the black bag. He hands them over and receives a glare in return. Santana's not ready to forgive him for her test when all Blaine had to do was make his hand glow. But right now, she has something more important to think about.

She searches the long wall of cave paintings until she finds what she's looking for. The stones slot into uneven round holes cut into the rock. When she fits the final stone, the apex, into its place, the stones activate again. They glow brightly like the constellation against the night sky in her vision.

"This cave is a map."


	6. Close Encounters

**ROSWELL**

**PART SIX**

**CLOSE ENCOUNTERS**

_November 22_

_Have you ever had a moment when you're with the one person you want to be with and no matter how crazy life has gotten, this moment – this perfect moment – no matter what happens, nothing can take it away from you?_

_And then something does._

* * *

**CAMP**

Kurt stands in front of his full length mirror twisting and turning to make sure every detail of his clothing is absolutely perfect. He's wearing a whole outfit from the new Marc by Marc Jacobs line exactly like the brooding male models on the runway. It's not often he takes a look straight from the runway without adding his own personal touch, but he's too nervous to trust himself tonight.

Blaine has tickets to see _RENT _at the community playhouse, and he asked Kurt to join him. It's just the two of them. Going see a musical. Blaine is picking him up. And they're going to Breadstix after. It wasn't explicitly stated as a date, but it certainly feels like one.

The light bulbs surrounding the mirror and the two lamps on either side of the bed casting a warm, ambient glow (like the lobby of the playhouse because Kurt needs to check his outfit in all lighting combinations) flicker as a streak of dry lightning cuts through the darkening sky.

Kurt frowns out his window. It's impossible, and yet … perhaps New Mexico is having _weather_. On the rare days when there is more than sunshine and dry heat, Kurt feels like he's in a movie in some distant, magical land where everyone looks wonderful upon waking up in the morning and soulmates meet-cute around every corner. A happy grin starts to form in the corner of his mouth, but fades immediately.

"No, no, no, no," he chants at the storm cloud. "Not tonight!"

He spins on the ball of his foot and dashes across the small hallway to his bathroom. He clutches his can of hairspray desperately and tries to figure out how to bring it with him without resorting to a man-purse.

"It's an aerosol can, not a life preserver," Burt laughs.

Kurt flashes his dad an annoyed glare. "I spent a full forty-five minutes perfecting my pompadour. The slightest bit of moisture, and it'll wilt like Johnny Depp's chances of winning an Oscar every time he does another Tim Burton movie."

"Okay. I don't really understand that, but I'm sure that's true. Just wanted to let you know I'm going out for a bit to get some supplies." Kurt shakes his head. "For this weekend."

"Oh. Right. Parents' camping weekend."

Burt lifts an eyebrow. "Now that's some impressive wilting. You still want to go, don't you? I know it's not really your thing, but we always have fun. And you're a senior this year. This is our last chance to do this together."

Kurt hedges. He's indulged his dad's favorite excursion activity for the last four years and subjected himself to a weekend of camping with classmates he absolutely despises. He really hoped this year he could stay at home and maybe go see a movie with Blaine if tonight goes well (and, of course, it will). But his dad did have a point.

"Oh, yeah. Definitely. Because I'm all about exploring the great outdoors."

Burt chooses not to respond to the sarcasm and leaves Kurt alone to finish getting ready. Kurt plonks down on his bed and lets his shoulders sag. The jocks always go camping with their dads, and while he might have inexplicably become friends with Finn, he certainly does not want to spend the weekend around Karofsky, Azimio, and Nelson.

The lights flicker off and on several more times while Kurt paces around his room counting down the minutes until Blaine should pull up. The electricity dies with a buzzing whine of the apartment and restaurant going silent. It's back on a few seconds later, but Kurt knows the kitchen will be a nightmare with fryer timers reset, and the walk-in cooler thermostat gets touchy without electricity for even the shortest time.

As he gallops down the stairs, he sends Blaine a text asking him to come to the restaurant instead of the house door.

"Everything all right?" he calls through the expediter's station.

"I think we'll be all right," Sam answers. "Almost everything remembered its timer settings, and Howard's working on the cooler."

The bell above the front door jangles wildly as Jacob Ben Israel bursts through the door. He beelines for the counter when he see two familiar faces from school. He throws himself onto the stool and cradles his video camera.

"Have you heard the news?"

The fact that he forgets to call Kurt and Sam by offensive nicknames means something genuinely important must have happened.

"What news?"

"Only everything I've been waiting my entire life for." He leans in close and whispers, "There's been a sighting."

Kurt rolls his eyes. There have been "sightings" around Roswell since 1947, and every one of them has been proven as a fake. Although, now that Kurt knows what he knows, he wonders how many might have been genuine and just expertly covered up like the crash that brought Blaine and Santana to Earth. He hates to indulge Jacob, but he wants information. He's saved by Sam's enthusiastic questions.

"Where?"

"Fraiser Woods."

"How'd you find out?"

"Police scanner. You can't trust the law to share news."

"It could be a hoax," Kurt interjects.

"No way," Jacob swears. "Too many corroborating testimonies. This is definitely the real thing."

"Fraiser Woods. That's near the Mesaliko reservation, right?" Kurt tries to sound casual.

"Right on the edge."

Kurt's heartbeat trebles. There's too many connections for this to be coincidence. Santana puts the Balance stones in the cave wall, and suddenly there's a sighting in the vicinity? He needs to talk to Blaine. He has a feeling their night at the theatre will be postponed.

"So what did these witnesses see?"

o

"A flash of light."

Sue rolls her eyes dramatically. If the bearded, potbellied trucker sitting across from her didn't have a story hidden behind those beady liar's eyes, she would kick him in the teeth for using that phrase. Unfortunately, he obviously did know something. And if this sighting had been real, she needed to know about it.

"Well, that's an original answer. I need some detail to work with. How big? What color was it? How long did it last?"

Her potential witness, Bill Smith, averts his eyes. Sue removes her glasses and gently lays them down on the desk. She comes around to sit in the vacant chair next to Bill and puts on her most sympathetic voice, the one she usually reserves for Becky when she splashes chocolate batter all over the kitchen in her enthusiastic attempts to make cupcakes.

"Tell you what. Why don't I turn this off?" She stops the tape recorder. "You tell me what you saw, and I swear on my badge no one will ever have to know."

Bill hesitates for a second longer, but tells her exactly what she needs to know.

"It was a white, hot light kind of like an x-ray."

o

"I can't believe I'm going to suggest this, but … we have to go on the camping trip."

Blaine almost chokes on his bite of cheesecake. He takes a drink of coffee and a long breath while Kurt glares at him with narrowed eyes. Even after the sighting that sent Kurt into a panic, Blaine insisted they should still go to see _RENT_. He'd said with a touch of affection, "There's nothing we can do tonight … except enjoy a good show." (But the local actors had butchered it, and Kurt will never forgive them for it).

"I'm sorry. What? I didn't think Marc Jacobs did hiking gear."

"Marc Jacobs does everything!"

"Sorry if I offended you or Mr. Jacobs. So tell me again why we're going on this camping trip?"

Kurt polishes off the last bite of his cheesecake and brandishes his fork with a flourish.

"Because ... the sighting was in Fraiser Woods, and the camping trip is in Fraiser Woods. It's the perfect opportunity."

Blaine's face lights up. "If we're caught checking it out, we'll just be a couple kids wandering away from our school group. I like the way you think. Yeah, I'll talk to my dad."

Kurt claps his hands and rocks back on his side of the booth. He's never been so excited for a camping trip in his life. True, impressing Blaine with his outfits and well-kempt appearance would be a serious challenge out in the woods, but he's up for the challenge.

"This is going to be so much fun! You have to set up your tent close to mine so we can have our annual showtunes sing-along around the campfire while we toast marshmallows and Noel Coward."

Blaine laughs. "Yeah, definitely. I've always thought the school camping trip sounded really lame, but … I can see I was missing out on a lot by staying home." He leans forward and whispers, "Also, the alien espionage will add a certain flair I just can't resist."

He winks conspiratorially at Kurt, which makes his cheeks flame red. Best. Date. Ever. Although it's not really a date. They'd had that awkward moment already at the theatre. Regardless, Kurt chooses to think of it as the Best. Date. Ever. until they have a real first date. And in ten years, they'll look back on this night and laugh, because even if it wasn't a date, it so obviously was.

o

"Here's your root beer, sweetheart."

Becky accepts the cold plastic bottle from the Deputy and wiggles down further into the only comfortable armchair in her mom's office. Most of the seats in this room have been designed to make suspects feel uncomfortable, but there's one squishy armchair tucked in the corner for Becky.

"Thank you, Sandy."

"Are you sure you want to wait?"

"Yes. She knows we have to buy a new tent for the camping trip."

Becky has no more finished her final word than a door slams somewhere within the police station, and Sue begins screaming through the marble halls with shocking echoes amplifying her voice even more than normal.

"Ryerson! Our witness spilled his beer-belly guts to the _Daily World News_, and now he's negotiating with Katie Couric. Double the search in Fraiser Woods. I want everything covered before that traitor Honey Badger gets her FBI goons out there." Sue turns to Becky, and without taking a breath, asks, "Shouldn't you be in school?"

"I have third period free. We have thirty-two minutes to buy a new tent."

The ringing telephone momentarily distracts Sue, who turns between the phone and Becky like she doesn't understand why they both aren't more panicked about the situation in Fraiser Woods. She begins an answer to Becky, but the deputy pipes up first.

"Mayor Higgins is on the line."

The anxious expression on Sandy's face and the way his knuckles flash white where he grips and covers the telephone's receiver tells Sue all she needs to know about the mayor's mood. She sighs deeply and flashes an apologetic look at her daughter.

"I'm sorry, Becky. This search is too important. I can't go this weekend."

"Can't or won't?"

"I'll tell you what. Why don't you go ahead without me? I'll get Mrs. Jackson to look out for you up there. She's your favorite teacher right?"

Becky's mouth forms a tight line, and she blinks quickly behind her glasses. Everyone thinks this camping trip is lame. Most of the kids in school have to be dragged out to the woods by their parents, but not Becky. She loves this trip. It's the one weekend a year she has her mom all to herself for two days in a row.

She takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and leaves the office with her head held high.

"Focus, Becky. Don't cry," she tells herself.

o

The parking lot of West Roswell High is packed with cars and groups of parents and students on Saturday morning. The faculty who volunteered as chaperones or who have children going on the camping trip are constantly pulled away to unlock the school so everyone can enjoy plumbing one last time before the bus trip out to Fraiser Woods.

Tina side-eyes her parents as they, once again, get way too enthusiastic about this camping trip for their own good. As an archeologist and park ranger, they're accustomed to adventures in the great outdoors, but Tina prefers the comfort of air conditioning, running water, and fluffy mattresses.

"Okay, honey. Here's your backpack."

Tina balks. The green monstrosity looks big enough to smuggle half a drug cartel across borders, and when they wrangle it onto her back, it feels about as heavy. She almost tips backwards. Her dad catches her shoulders and rights her. All she can think is, "Thank God this is the last year."

On the other side of the waiting yellow school bus, Christian eyes Blaine and Santana warily. They've never done this camping trip before, and for good reason: camping is hell. He'd been flabbergasted when Blaine came to him with the flyer and sign-up sheet, but he seemed sincere about wanting to go, so Christian relented.

"You two sure you really want to do this?"

"Absolutely," Blaine says. Santana doesn't answer until she gets Blaine's elbow in her ribs.

"Yes, absolutely." She turns away, pretending to scan the crowd, and mutters into Blaine's ear, "Mosquitos, pit toilets, and animal dropping, _yes!_"

Christian hears her even though she didn't mean for him to. He turns away hastily to hide his mirth. Secretly, he agrees with her wholeheartedly, but Blaine has his heart set on camping, so camping is exactly what they're going to do.

Jacob Ben Israel has zero camping equipment, but enough camcorders and sound equipment to film _The Blair Witch Project. _Kurt eyes him harshly as he follows his dad through the crowd to check-in. They're going to have a Jacob problem if they're not careful.

"Don't look so down," Burt says over his shoulder. "I bought you all that special … camping gear."

He eyes Kurt's outfit skeptically, but Kurt insisted that the knee-high faux fur boots, matching hat, and camo-print shirt were essential for the fashion forward camper. Burt figured it was the only way to placate Kurt, so he's paid for the whole furry/camo ensemble.

They pass Becky, who has her arms crossed and a deep frown marring her face. She refused to speak to her mom all night after getting the bad news that her weekend was totally ruined. Mrs. Jackson approaches her with a too bright smile.

"I hear we'll be bunking together this trip."

"Pinch me," Becky deadpans.

"I'll take it from here."

Becky spins around, her whole face lighting up at the familiar and too welcomed voice. Sue flashes an affectionate grin at her daughter and holds up a canvas tube.

"We needed a new tent, right?"

"I thought you had to work."

Sue shrugs. "I'm bringing the sat phone. They'll get ahold of me if they need me."

Becky throws her arms around her mom. With their drastic height difference, she only comes about to the bottom of Sue's ribcage. They queue up to board the bus along with half a dozen other families who have finally sorted out their gear.

"So … Fraiser Woods. Makes me a little nervous."

Sue turns to Spencer Abrams, who for some unknown reason thinks his kid wants to struggle to get his wheelchair over boulders and streams. She might have assumed the camping trip was Artie's idea if not for the stormy look on his face. Yeah, none of these kids except for Becky want to go camping.

"It's a well-marked camp site," Sue says. "There are lots of cleared trails and ranger patrols."

"No, I mean about the sighting. It's close to where we're going, right?"

"Maybe about two miles."

Even as Sue says it, her eyes land on the line of students and parents loading onto the second bus. Standing by the door, about to climb up the steps, is Blaine Anderson. She hastily steps out of line with a quick reassurance to Becky that she'll be back. She presses the speed dial on her phone.

"Ryerson, put some extra men on the perimeter in Fraiser Woods. I think something might happen tonight, and I want to be ready."

* * *

**FRAISER WOODS**

The campground at Fraiser Woods receives a lot of attention from campers and park rangers. As one of the only verdant spots around the area, its preservation and conservation is important to everyone whether they are outdoorsy or not. The rocky terrain between old growth trees that offers leafy shade is free of litter and well-worn. The trails are clearly marked, but no camp lines have been laid out. Kids and parents plop down willy-nilly wherever seems like a good spot to them.

Blaine, Santana, Tina, and Kurt lead the charge in finding their campsite. Christian is happy to follow along wherever his son decides is a good spot, but Burt, Peter, and Andrea are confused. Usually, they have to select the site and convince their kids it's a good one. Kurt usually finds fault with how close to the trees they camp - "Ticks, Dad!" - and Tina complains about how hard the ground is - "There's a rock in my back … and my shoulder … and my legs … and my …" Today, however, they're marching forward like they're on a mission.

"Let's go closer to the trees," Blaine says.

Burt snorts, because he's positive his son's boyfriend is about to get an earful. To his surprise, Kurt nods fervently, and they angle towards the densest patch of trees in the entire campsite. Burt is at a loss. Either Kurt is still trying to impress Blaine or Blaine's boyishness is rubbing off on Kurt. He's not sure how he feels about either prospect.

They finally pick a spot right on the edge of the campground. Tina kicks mournfully at the uneven ground, but wrestles her backpack off anyway. Kurt eyes the tree branches bobbing overhead with a deep frown.

"I need my tick spray, stat," he announces.

Blaine slides up to Kurt, who is tearing through his gear. He pretends to be interested in whatever Kurt is searching for, but leans in close to whisper into his ear.

"It'll be easier to leave if we're on the edge."

Santana and Tina join their gathering around Kurt's backpack, and the scene loses its innocent closeness that might have been mistaken for boyfriends sharing a moment in a crowded place. It definitely looks like a meeting now.

"Sheriff Sylvester is _right here_," Tina says.

"That's why we have to do this. If there's something to find, we have to find it first," Santana replies.

They agree, but it doesn't make them any less nervous about carrying out their plan right under the Sheriff's nose.

o

Thirty paces behind, Sue and Becky stomp across the same path. Becky keeps pointing out various spots she'd like to set up their new tent, but Sue only shakes her head and keeps walking. She bypasses the perfectly flat space Becky finds, their usual site by the hollow fallen tree, and a prime spot right by the water tap.

"Right here," she says.

Becky eyes the campsite with a cocked eyebrow that Sue doesn't notice. There are sharp rocks poking up out of the ground, the terrain slants sharply down, and they won't have a view of the night sky at all. But Sue is too busy making sure Blaine Anderson is staying put in the spot he picked.

Sue knows that kid is no good. He's hiding something big, and she knows perfectly well what it is. Her parents hunted their whole lives for aliens, and she always thought they were crazier than Edith Beales, but she knows better now. There's a fine line between obsession and madness, and her parents might have crossed it, but crazy doesn't equal untrue.

On top of that, he's broken into her personal property twice.

"I'm going to break the world record," Becky says. She struggles with the new tent and finally gets it to slip from its canvas sleeve. "Last year, I ate thirty-nine marshmallows. This year, I'm going to eat forty. … Mom?"

"Hmm?"

Sue hardly registers her name. She's staring across the half dozen yards of sloping, rocky ground at the campsite where the Hummels, Cohen-Changs, Andersons, and one parentless Santana Lopez have set up camp.

"Why are you staring at Blaine? Did you come out here to spy on him?"

Sue turns sharply to her daughter and catches the dejection written on her face. She feels a stab of guilt that she's been so obviously caught up in the still unsolved case codenamed "What the hell happened to Porcelain?" She decides Anderson can't cause too much mischief while it's still light outside, and they have a whole day ahead of them.

"Becky …."

"It's fine, Mom. Let's just set up the tent," Becky sighs. "I'm sick of talking about the tent like I'm obsessed with it. It's weird."

"Very true. Also, that's a stake, not a tent pole, so unless you want to belly crawl into the tent tonight, you'd better crack open those instructions."

o

The day passes surprisingly fast, as Saturday on the camping trip always does. It takes hours to get the campsite set up, to dig fire pits, and to get fires going. By then, it's usually dinner time, and cooking over a campfire takes forever (hence the number of teenagers eating toasted marshmallows by the bag).

Around noon, Finn and Carole Hudson wander over. They pretend it's because they couldn't tolerate camping next to the Israels anymore, but from the eyes Carole and Burt are making at each other, there's clearly an ulterior motive.

Finn Hudson isn't so bad as far as company goes. He's not fun, by any means, nor particularly bright, but he's easy-going and willing to help with the heavy lifting, so he's accepted into the teenagers' group with only a few significant looks that scream "He's an outsider. Don't mention the a-word."

They play card games until the sun begins set, and then gather around the fire to roast marshmallows (which most of the adults, minus Christian and Burt, had been opposed to having for dinner). At last, the deepening night and boredom begin drawing campers to bed. One-by-one, they grab their toiletries and make the trek over to the water tap.

"Always be prepared?"

Tina looks up from the water tap where she's rinsing the toothpaste out of her mouth. Santana comes bearing a toothbrush, but no toothpaste tube. She unscrews the cap and squirts a dollop onto the bristles of Santana's toothbrush.

"Well, I was a Girl Scout. Goodnight."

"So, this is the way things are going to be between us from now on?" Santana calls after her.

"You wanted it this way." Tina shakes her head, as if to say she's not getting into this again. "We should get in our tents so we have time to pretend to sleep before we leave."

"Tina –"

"Everyone has their reasons for keeping people away. It's an instinct to protect yourself from getting hurt. It's part of human nature. I just wish you would realize that you're not that different from us. Then maybe we'd have a chance."

Santana watches her retreating back sadly. This isn't what she wanted, and she's crushed that Tina thinks it is. She wanted to be friends, to be close, to be strong. Like Blaine and Kurt. They can have it all, so why can't Santana and Tina?

The answer is obvious to Santana, although she hates to admit it. Their relationship is fragile without the connection. She knows what she has to do about that. And it scares her.

o

The plan is to wait for the entire camp to go silent, wait thirty minutes, and sneak away to a meeting point within the thickness of the trees. Tina has to move more carefully than the others because her parents are such light sleepers, but she manages to creep away without rousing either of them. Kurt, Blaine, and Santana wait for her by the bare trunk of an old tree with gnarls and knots along its trunk.

"Are we ready, then?" Blaine asks.

There are nods all around. He turns in the direction of the Mesaliko caves they've gotten to know intimately in the past few weeks. Tina would be happy to never go there again, but that's not likely to happen. The sighting is obviously leading them there, so she'll have to see the place Santana almost died again.

"We're going straight to the cave? Or looking for something in the woods?" Kurt asks.

Blaine and Santana shrug, because they don't know any more than Kurt and Tina. It's frightening, really, how clueless they all are. They've bumbled their way through everything up to this point, and that trend doesn't seem likely to change at all.

"Keep your eyes open for anything."

They nod at Santana and begin walking over the rocky, uneven ground in a northeasterly direction. The chill of a November night in New Mexico seeps bone deep despite the sweaters, coats, and boots they came armed with. Their breath mists in front of their faces as they march onward with shoulders slowly bowing and cheeks brightening. Gradually, they begin speaking less and less until they're focusing solely on putting one foot in front of the other.

"Fucking freezing," Tina mutters.

"Come here."

Santana draws her over by the forearm and links their arms together so they're walking with their sides pressed up together. Tina shoots her a curious look, but she's too grateful for the body heat to push the issue. Up ahead, Kurt and Blaine charge forward without any sign of the cold adversely affecting them. Santana shakes her head.

"I want to punch whoever said girls can't have body hair."

Tina's lips quirk. "You could always go natural."

Santana raises a perfectly tweezed eyebrow skeptically.

They come to a stand-still an hour after setting out when they hear the baying of dogs in the distance. Tina turns southwest, listening closely to the animal sounds.

"Coyotes?"

"Search dogs," she corrects.

"Come on. We're close."

Blaine takes Kurt's hand and sets off at a run up the steeply sloping hillside dotted with boulders and trees. In his impractical boots, Kurt struggles to gain purchase on the loose ground and slips backwards too many times. Santana isn't faring much better in her tennis shoes, and although he tried, even Blaine didn't wear the right boots for hiking.

They finally reach the top of the hill, but the frantic dogs have picked up the trail and are gaining on them. If it wasn't freezing outside, Tina would suggest running through the stream, but she'd rather keep all her toes.

"We can't outrun them. They're too fast," Tina says.

"You two keep going. Tina and I will stay here. We'll tell them we got lost in the woods," Kurt says.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. The important thing is that you find out what's going on."

Even with Kurt's assurances, Blaine is reluctant to leave them alone in the woods.

"Go! Go!" Kurt says.

Santana tugs Blaine's arm once more, and they leave at a sprint with Blaine peering over his shoulder mournfully, as if this is somehow betraying Kurt. When they're far enough away that they can't be seen anymore, Kurt and Tina begin shouting at the top of their lungs.

"Hey! Hey, we're here!"

"Help! We're over here! Help!"

When they see flashlights bobbing as police officers run towards them, they jump around and wave their hands in their air. They're actors, they can convince a couple deputies they're genuinely relieved to have been found after wandering lost in the woods.

o

Unannounced to the teenagers, they've had a tail since Blaine snuck out of camp. Sue has maintained her distance and navigated the forest with only moonlight and the teenagers' cell phones-turned-flashlights to guide her. When they part ways – and she has to admit the ruse is a good one – she ignores Porcelain and Tina Cohen-Loser and follows Anderson.

She's close to finding out the truth, she can feel it in her bones. She hurries forward, a little less cautious of low-hanging thorns and branches than she should be, but so very eager to finally have the whole truth in front of her eyes.

Anderson and Lopez stop for a few minutes in front of a shallow stream and try to find a way across without stepping in the water. They crouch down by the bank, and Sue cranes to see what they're doing, but the darkness is too deep. When she follows them across the stream, she guesses they pulled wide, flat stones into a makeshift bridge since she's able to walk over the stream dry as well.

She's a dozen feet from the stream when she hears the clattering of rocks and a splash. She's torn between chasing down Anderson and investigating who has been following the follower. She doesn't have to go back, however, because her stalker appears beside her in a beam of moonlight.

"Becky, what the hell are you doing out here?" Sue hisses.

The girl's cheeks are bright pink, and her jeans up to the knee are soaking wet. All Sue can think about is how susceptible to infections Becky is, and her brain kicks into panic mode. Whatever Anderson is going to do, it's not half as important as getting her daughter warm and dry, but the girl braces her hands on her hips and glares at her mom.

"I wanted to see what was more important than me. What's going on, Mom? Why are you stalking Blaine Anderson? Do I need to call _To Catch a Predator_? Because I know Blaine is a hottie, but this is weird, Mom."

"We need to get –"

"This is why you hated grandma and grandpa, isn't it? You talk all the time about having to stay home with Aunt Jean and take care of her while grandma and grandpa went out hunting little green men. That's my job now, isn't it? I have to sit at home and miss you."

Sue feels her stomach drop out. Maybe the line between obsession and madness is even finer than she thought.

o

Blaine and Santana jog down into a grassy bowl surrounded by trees and shrubs. The rocks rise from this point and grow into the cave complex where the Stranger painted a map and the Balance saved Santana's life.

"There should be something around here," Blaine says.

"There is, but I'll need your help to look."

They spin around to find Wes walking forward through a thick copse of trees to the left. He's dressed in full hiking gear more appropriate to a long trek through the forest than theirs.

"I'd hoped you'd come," Wes said. "This is where it'll be."

They search around the area for any clues that the Stranger – or whoever had appeared here – might have left for them. After a quarter hour, Santana feels something when she touches the rising rock wall.

"There's something here," she calls.

"There will be a message for you," Wes says.

Blaine and Santana hold their hands over the rock, and a bright, white light flashes from beneath their palms and between their fingers. On the blank rock appears a black symbol. Two sides of a curving rim bracket a heavy black dot. It's the same symbol as on the pendant.

"He's here. The Stranger is back."

* * *

**STARS**

The problem with coming back to camp via police escort is that it wakes up a lot of people. Classmates stare in awe because Kurt and Tina are the last two candidates for juvenile delinquents they can imagine. Noah Puckerman actually fist-bumps Kurt.

"Kurt! Where the hell have you been?" Burt demands.

"Oh, Tina, sweetie. What's going on?"

The deputy who steps forward to reassure their parents is tall with a chiseled jaw and a smile that flashes all his straight, white teeth. The name plate affixed to his uniform says "D. Goolsby." He speaks with a slow southern drawl.

"Everything is fine, folks. They got lost in the woods and ended up wandering in the wrong direction. The important thing is that we found them and brought them back to you safe and sound. Good thing we were out here on patrol."

The deputy touches his hat and makes his way back to his squad car while Burt, Andrea, and Peter fuss over their kids. A minute later, Christian comes running up to them in a panic, and Kurt realizes the serious flaw in their plan. The police can only be diverted for so long.

"We didn't see Blaine or Santana," Kurt says. "I'm sure they're fine, though. They probably just –"

"I'm going to the police," Christian announces.

He hurries away before they can dissuade him. A sharp jab in the back draws Kurt's attention to Tina, who subtly jerks her head in the direction of the flashing red and blue lights on the squad cars parked in the lane. His stomach drops out.

Men in black suits are speaking to the police.

"Fuck," he mutters.

Blaine and Santana make their appearance fifteen minutes later. Their cheeks are flushed bright red, and their hair is askew. They must have sprinted the whole way back to camp. Kurt desperately wants to know what they found, but they can't talk about it now with parents, police, and FBI around. After they make their excuses, everyone retires to the tents again.

"Bathroom, Dad," Blaine had said.

"Being such a timid girl, I was afraid to go to the bathroom alone and woke up my manly best friend to stand guard," Santana added dourly.

"Ignore her. You know how she gets when she admits she's afraid of something."

Christian had let it go, but Kurt can practically feel his dad waiting for an opening to bombard him with questions the whole walk back to their tent.

"Yes, Dad?"

"Nothing. I'm just …. Look, I saw _Brokeback Mountain_ –"

"Oh, God."

" – and, you know, I don't know what happened exactly, but something went down in the tent. And now we're out here camping, and you disappear at the same time as Blaine –"

"Dad!" Kurt waves his arms, as if to ward off this horrific conversation. "What happened in the movie had absolutely nothing to do with camping or tents. Okay? Camping doesn't make you gay."

"Yeah, I know that, Kurt. I'm just saying, if that's what you kids are sneaking off to do, then I hope you're being responsible. You know, safe."

With a distressed sound, Kurt flops down onto the ground and pulls his sleeping bag over his face.

"Look, Kurt. This is tough for me too –"

"To give me The Talk in public? You do realize canvas isn't exactly soundproof, right?"

"When you're ready for that step, you should use sex to connect to another person. Don't throw yourself around like you don't matter. Because you matter, Kurt."

It would be a beautiful and moving moment if only they were _in a tent_ with his friends _two feet away_. His mortification is utterly complete when he hears Santana's muffled laughter. Yeah, _Blaine and his father _definitely heard that little speech too.

"I love you, Dad, so I hope you understand what I mean when I say that sometimes I hate you too."

Burt chuckles dryly. "'Goodnight, Kurt."

"Goodnight, Dad."

"Goodnight, John Boy," Santana calls.

"Goodnight, Blaine," Tina yells.

"Goodnight, Finn," Blaine says.

"Goodnight, Christian."

"Goodnight, Andrea."

"Goodnight, Carole."

"Goodnight, Peter."

"Goodnight, Santana."

Half of the camp is yelling for them to shut-up, and the other half has joined in calling goodnight to everyone in a round robin. It is officially the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened on a school camping trip, but it's one of those things that they'll always remember and laugh over at their class reunions.

Because of their late night escapades, Kurt, Tina, Blaine, and Santana wake later than most of the camp and have to wait forever at the water tap to get water to boil their breakfast. Kurt refuses to go a day without washing and breaks out his massive supply of baby wipes.

"You're joking?" Blaine asks.

Kurt sniffs. "I will not be one of the unwashed masses except as a cast member of _Les Miserables_. Come stand guard for me."

"What?" Blaine squeaks.

Kurt tugs him into the woods deep enough to find a secluded place. He pauses with his hands on the hem of his shirt and motions for Blaine to turn around. The other boy stares wide-eyed, swallows thickly, and spins on the ball of his foot.

"So I wanted to talk to you about something," Kurt says.

Blaine swallows thickly. "Umm. You should probably wait to do that until you're not … you know, naked."

Kurt laughs. "I'm not naked."

Blaine takes that as his cue to turn around, and Kurt squawks. His shirt is draped over a low branch, and his jeans are unbuttoned and unzipped, sitting low on his hips, with the open V showing tight black short boxer-briefs. The red in their cheeks matches, and Blaine fumbles a stuttered apology.

"Sorry! I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm so sorry."

"Turn around!"

Blaine spins again and stares resolutely into the trees. He tries not to think about seeing Kurt in his underwear. No, Kurt _undressing_. But it's too late for that. He looks down, and yes, his hard on is totally conspicuous. Fucking teenage boy hormones. He tries to subtly adjust himself, but there's really nothing subtle about adjusting a boner. He closes his eyes and wills it to go away, but Kurt is still mostly naked behind him, and he'll never get the image of Kurt undressing out of his head, and that brings back the vision he had of Kurt jerking off, and that makes the hard on situation that much more dire.

"Okay. I'm done."

_**Fuck.**_

"Can we just forget about this?" Kurt asks.

The answer is obviously a resounding no, but Kurt pretends not to notice Blaine's prominent boner, so Blaine thinks he owes it to Kurt to offer a little white lie. He nods, and they start their walk back towards camp.

"So … you were right about Ms. Holliday. Santana and I, we shouldn't have acted so rashly."

"I thought we were over that?"

Kurt sighs deeply and shares what he and Tina saw last night. "The sighting drew the FBI right back to Roswell, if they ever left at all. We're still being followed, except now we don't know who's undercover. It could be anyone, it could be no one. We're back to where we started, except in an even worse situation. Blaine, I am _so_ sorry. This is my fault. I didn't listen to you, and I got Santana involved, and –"

With each sentence, his distress grows tenfold until he's rambling and his voice is embarrassingly high-pitched. He has trouble breathing, and he can feel the tears beginning behind his eyes.

"Kurt! Kurt, listen to me."

Blaine forces them to stop walking and face each other. He holds Kurt gently by the arms and meets his gaze earnestly.

"We've been over this, right? We both could have handled that situation better. The important thing is that we learned from it, and … I think we're closer now." Kurt nods. "Good. Then you can never mention it again. Promise?"

"If you promise to never apologize for saving my life again."

Blaine pulls a face. "That's different."

"Saving my life changed yours."

"It changed yours too."

"Yeah, for the better."

"Yeah, definitely for the better."

Kurt blinks at Blaine through his lashes and lets his fingers graze over his shoulders and backwards until his arms loop around Blaine in a loose hug. Blaine's arms fit naturally around Kurt's waist, and they shift closer to each other.

When their bodies touch, it's like a wave of tension rolls away from them and scatters into the universe. Stars pop behind Kurt's eyes. Not in the cliché I-saw-stars sense, but true stars – balls of gas burning brightly in the inky sky – and he rockets closer to them like a traveler hurtling through space. He rushes past gas giants and asteroid fields, nebulae and supernovas.

When he draws in his next breath and returns to the terrestrial world, he finds that he's clinging to Blaine. His breath comes in gasps against Blaine's ear, and he can feel Blaine trembling against him too. They stay that way for uncounted minutes, clinging to each other and lost in the touch of the person they care about most.

o

Sunday creeps by like a snail for most of the teenagers only camping because their parents talked them into going through a clever mixture of guilt and nostalgia. Sam and Puck had brought their guitars, which helped pass the time considerably, but sing-alongs only last for so long, and Santana has no interest in the pick-up game of flag football Finn tries to talk her into joining. Why is camping even a thing? There's nothing to do but sit around and swat at insects.

Bored out of her mind, and desperately searching for some distraction, Santana wanders away from camp. Maybe if she can find Blaine, they can talk about the sign they found and what to do next. Now that she knows the Stranger is in Roswell, he's not an abstract possibility anymore. He's out there, and she has to find him.

She does find Blaine eventually, but she doesn't interrupt. He's too busy wrapping himself around Kurt. Or the other way around. They're too close for her to clearly see, but it makes her roll her eyes anyway. They're two teenage boys. Why are they _hugging_?

On her way back to camp, she comes upon a stream meandering through a shallow valley. The curve of the stream and a rainstorm late last week has created a standing pool around a round gray boulder. Tina sits on top of the rock texting on her phone, except from the way she never stops typing, Santana thinks she's actually writing. She's beautiful with her hair flying in the gentle breeze and the afternoon light at her back. But even without those things, she would still be exquisite.

"Hi."

Her voice is so soft Tina almost doesn't hear. It's shockingly vulnerable, and that's exactly the way Santana feels. She wishes she could put some sharpness in her voice, but she can't. Not anymore. Not with Tina.

Tina looks up and frowns deeply at her. "What do you want?"

"I saw you over here and thought I'd come say hello. But I'll never do it again."

Santana throws up her arms and spins around, letting her swinging ponytail tell a story of outrage while her face crumples and she blinks away tears. Tina makes a sound, almost a scoff. It's in her voice too when she calls after Santana.

"Fine. Run away just like you always do."

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Santana demands, rounding on Tina. "What did I even do?"

Tina abandons whatever she's writing on her phone. She jumps off the boulder onto the soggy stream bank and marches over to Santana like a soldier going to war. Santana senses before the tirade even begins that she's about to get as good as she's ever given.

"Nothing. That's the problem. Santana, we saved you. You were sweating, running a 112-degree fever. I could have walked away, but instead I dragged you through the Indian reservation getting my clothes all muddy and gross and …" – her voice cracks, and tears pool in her eyes – "worrying." She blinks away the tears and leaves behind cold determination. "And when it's all over, you hug Blaine, and it's all about the two of you and forget the rest of us who sat by your bed and held your hand and worried about you."

"I didn't –"

"And then, you and Kurt make up your minds that you have the solution to all our problems, and it doesn't matter what Blaine and I say, you're doing it whether we like it or not. And now look what's happened. The FBI are back, and they're watching us, but we don't know who or where they are."

"And I'm sorry about that! Do you think we wanted that to happen? People make mistakes. Friends are supposed to forgive each other."

"Friends are also supposed to respect each other and consider each other's feelings, and you don't do that."

Santana shakes her head and growls in frustration. "You're talking about, like, four different things at once. Just tell me what you're so pissed about."

"Did you even think about talking to me before you decided we can't be together? Or were my feelings about us just not important to you at all?"

The words slam into Santana's chest like a lead weight. She physically reels backwards when faced with the accusation. Her lower lip trembles, but she flexes her jaw to curtail the weak gesture. She has to look away from Tina's face rapidly emptying of all anger. She can't look at soulful eyes right now and keep it together.

"If you're scared, I can understand that," Tina says softly. "I won't think less of you."

"Yes, you will! I have to protect Blaine, and now you and Kurt too. I don't have the luxury of being scared. I have to cut off everything that makes me afraid so that I can take care of all of you. Because if I can't do that, if I can't protect you, then I'm worthless."

Tina shakes her head fervently. "That's not true, Santana. Nothing could ever make you worthless to me. Not if you were terrified. Not if you wanted to run away or wanted to cry. The way I feel about you, it's not so feeble that one single word or action could ever change it. Even after weeks of being hurt and angry, it hasn't changed. Hearing you admit you're scared sometimes, that won't change it either."

Santana stays silent for too long. She's at war with herself, as if she's two different people fighting for control of the same mind. She knows the right choice, and she knows the safe choice. The irony is that she's too scared to make either choice. Tina's palms cup her face and thumbs stroke over her cheekbones.

_A little girl with a head of dark hair hides in the corner with her face turned away from the rest of the children in the classroom. They'd called her such mean names and made fun of her favorite dress and wouldn't let her play jump rope with them at recess. She just wants them all to leave her alone. She'd rather be ignored than cry in front of her bullies again._

Santana honestly can't figure out if the memory is from her past or Tina's.

o

The bus leaves Fraiser Woods at four o'clock on Sunday. The full scale police search had been an ignominious end to what was supposed to be a secret plan, and after a full day of hiding from Sheriff Sylvester, they're all happy to return to Roswell.

Blaine worries that the Sheriff will be watching them even more closely now, but his fears seem to be for naught. The Sheriff is totally focused on the game of I, Spy Becky has started up. He breathes a sigh of relief and sinks down into his seat.

If they can keep a low profile, maybe everything – the sighting, their disappearance – can blow over soon. He's never been so grateful for the upcoming short school week and Thanksgiving Break.

* * *

**THANKSGIVING**

The living room is a cacophony of noise. Between the fans screaming on the television turned up too loudly, and the Anderson men shouting at the players, Diane can hardly hear the mixer whipping the mashed potatoes. She huffs loudly and peeks into the living room again. Christian and Blaine have spots on the couch next to each other – not that they're sitting. They're jumping around like monkeys.

"Run! Run! Run! Run!" they bellow at the television. "No! What! No! You had it! You had it!"

They collapse onto the cushions during commercials like they've run a marathon and had an emotional bombshell dropped on them at the finish line. She shakes her head in disgust – _football_ – and goes back to preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Her sisters and mother-in-law in the kitchen wear the same expression, except her youngest niece Charla, who keeps sneaking glances at the screen. Diane would much rather focus on the mixing and baking, but she can't help overhear the conversation in the living room.

"Good God, what it wrong with the Cowboys today?" Grandpa Anderson grouses. "Makes me wish I could see a Lobos game instead."

Half the room wants to discuss football, and the other half is only watching because it's tradition. They're perfectly willing to discuss everything besides the game.

"Do you play football, Blaine?" Liam asks. "You're a good size for a kicker."

He's new to the Anderson's Thanksgiving gathering this year. He started dating Charla last year around Christmas, and they're already engaged, which is the family scandal at the moment. (Blaine wonders what would happen if they knew one among them was a different species).

"Blaine doesn't play football," Great Uncle Mitchell says. "He's a queer."

Blaine's jaw flexes, and the happy bubble of watching football with the mouth-watering scent of Thanksgiving dinner cooking bursts. He's hardly come out to his family at all. Mostly, word got around from his mom's requests that they pray for him.

"Do you play, Blaine?" Liam repeats.

Liam stares defiantly at Uncle Mitchell, and Blaine wonders if, somehow, against all odds, an ally has come into the Anderson family.

"No, I don't. I'm an avid spectator, but not a player."

His dad claps him hard on the shoulder. "I'm thinking about getting season tickets to NM State so I can get this guy home on a regular basis when he goes off to college next year."

Blaine is still flabbergasted every time his dad jumps to his defense. The more it happens, the more he's convinced his dad doesn't, and probably never did, have a problem with having a gay son. He knows where the real animosity comes from, and right now she's standing in the kitchen.

At the next commercial break, the conversation turns to college, where Blaine applied, and the fact that he doesn't have a major in mind yet. A couple of his relatives suggest musical theater and interior design with hearty guffaws. Blaine stews in silence because starting a fight at Thanksgiving won't win anyone over.

"Whatever he picks in the end, he'll be brilliant at it, just like everything else he does," Christian says definitively.

His dad not rising to the bait takes the wind out of the homophobic sails. Blaine doesn't have to endure any more snickering or jokes for the rest of the day, but his mom prays for "the wayward among us" over dinner.

o

Kurt collapses onto the sofa and toes off his sensible shoes with rubber grips on the bottom. He detests people who can't suck it up and cook a meal on Thanksgiving (and Christmas) because it means he never gets to cook on the holidays. He ran between tables all afternoon with a placid smile fixed on his lips as he delivered plates of turkey (and, horrifyingly, cheeseburgers and French fries), but finally, the Crashdown is closed and the Hummel family Thanksgiving can begin.

This year, it's an extended event. Once he and his dad take showers and change clothes, they're going over to the Hudson's house. He's looking forward to a home-cooked meal for once instead of the pre-sliced turkey that came in vacuum-packed servings from the Crashdown's suppliers, but he wishes he had been able to make it himself.

An hour later – record time for Kurt – the Hummels stand on the Hudson's stoop with a homemade pumpkin pie in Kurt's hands and a bottle of wine under Burt's arm. The wine had been Kurt's idea, not that he expected to get any. He wanted his dad to be able to woo Carole in style, though, and he needed some help for that.

Finn answers the door in jeans and a striped shirt with a giant number 8 on it. Kurt should have known he wouldn't dress for dinner, but he can see Carole in the kitchen has made an attempt – a tragically misguided one – to dress up. Someone needs to burn her acid wash jeans in effigy of the decade that spawned them, but the blouse is okay.

"Hello!" Carole says, bustling out of the kitchen. "Dinner is just about ready. Finn, will you get the drinks?"

The next quarter hour is spent situating the food on the table in the kitchen/dining room combination, and then they sit down for the meal. Already, the sun begins its descent outside. It's an exceedingly late dinner, and Finn demonstrates just how long they've been waiting when he practically attacks the turkey with the carving knife.

"Finn!" Carole scolds.

Burt laughs. "I remember how ravenous I always felt at seventeen. I think at this point we're lucky he's even bothering with utensils."

Finn flashes a lopsided smile at Burt, and Carole grins despite herself. Kurt has never thought of his dad has particularly charming, and yet he's won over this family effortlessly. He's happy for his dad, and yet he's not. He doesn't feel comfortable here yet. As he looks around the table, it's obvious one is not like the others, and that one is Kurt.

"Did you catch the game this afternoon?" Finn asks. Burt shakes his head because he has a mouthful of turkey. "Actually, that's probably a good thing. It was a disaster. The Cowboy's defense was on another planet or something. They let everything through."

"I remember this one Thanksgiving game probably twenty years ago …."

Kurt has no clue what his dad is talking about. Something about downs and yard lines that means nothing at all to Kurt, but Finn obviously understands. He gasps and interjects questions at just the right moments to make Burt's face light up and his pace pick up. Kurt sits in the middle of the conversation, his neck swiveling from his dad to Finn like he's watching a tennis match, and his frown deepens by the minute.

"We should go to a Lobos game sometime," Burt says. "I'm an alum, so tickets are no problem."

Kurt's stomach drops out, and the delicious turkey in his mouth tastes like cardboard now. He's never been invited to a football game. Or any sporting event ever. The bottle of wine was such a bad idea in retrospect.

This is not how Thanksgiving is supposed to go. It's about family coming together, not losing his only living parent to the straight quarterback archetype his dad has always wanted as a son. It's there in the back of his mind that this is his fault. Not just that he's gay and into fashion and theatre, but the way he's been acting: keeping secrets, shutting his dad out, refusing to explain when he's called on it.

He's getting exactly what he deserves.

"I assume you have big shopping plans for tomorrow?" Carole asks.

It takes Kurt a second to realize she's talking to him. His dad and Finn have stopped their enthusiastic and insensitive bonding finally. They're watching him expectantly. He contemplates denying it and saying he's going dirt biking or something else boyish, but he doesn't because it won't change anything. He'll still be gay whether he likes fashion and theatre or boxing and football. He swallows the lump in his throat.

"I have a sale schedule planned out to maximize my productivity, and I've conscripted Blaine to carry all my bags," he says with a defiant tone in his voice. "Although he insisted on a break to sit in the massage chairs, so we're losing valuable time. I took it out of his Brooks Brothers shopping time."

There are stifled smiles and laughter around the table. Kurt jumps when his dad's hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. He uses his other hand to wipe at his eyes.

"Oh, kid. You have no idea how much I love you."

Kurt stares for a full minute. He feels like he's a snow globe that been picked up, shook around, and still hasn't settled. Conversation moves on, though, without anyone noticing the emotional turmoil Kurt is careful to keep off his face. At last, when he composes himself enough to join back in, he turns to Carole.

"We should plan a shopping trip sometime. When I won't make you stick to a sale schedule," Kurt clarifies.

He doesn't add that they're going to burn her acid wash in effigy after.

o

The Community Hope Center is full to bursting with homeless families crowded around tables and eating the meal the volunteers and shelter director have cooked in the giant trays. There isn't quite enough food to go around, but everyone has something. There are smiles and laughter all around the common room that might have otherwise been stark and depressing.

Ever since Tina could walk, the Cohen-Changs have spent part of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter at the homeless shelter serving food. Or, rather, Tina serves the food. Her parents mingle around the room talking to everyone and hearing their stories. Tina's always been too shy for that, but her parents have never met a stranger.

"Hi, Tina."

She looks up from the tray of mashed potatoes she ladles onto proffered plates. Mike Chang pulls on a pair of plastic gloves and takes the handle of the buttered corn at the next station. She has never seen him here in all the holidays she's volunteered.

"Hi, Mike. First year at the serving stations?"

"Yeah." He pulls a face. "My parents hired a consultant to look over my college applications, and he said I needed more volunteer work. Suddenly, they're adamant that we shouldn't have Thanksgiving until tonight." He shakes his head. "So cold."

Tina's parents have been on her to send in "just one more" application in case her top ten choices don't pan out, but they've never crossed into morally dubious territory. She shrugs sympathetically.

"The important thing is that you're here, and you recognize moral gray areas."

They serve a family of four in silence, but Tina watches Mike from the corner of her eye. The smiles he flashes the family aren't forced, and she knows he's always willing to help out his friends. She decides it's not his fault college sent his parents off the deep end.

"So where are you hoping to go?" she asks.

"Stanford. Pre-med."

"Oh." Her face falls. "I always thought you'd want to be a dancer, not a doctor."

"I do. But that's not gonna happen while my dad has anything to say about it. I got an A- on our Chemistry test, and he freaked. I'm allowed to eat, sleep, and study. And venture into morally gray territory to boost my CV."

Tina doesn't know what to say to make it better. She doesn't think she can do or say anything that will help. She can't relate at all. Her parents helped record her audition videos and edit her reel of glee club performances that she sent along with her applications.

"Don't give up on your dreams. No matter who tells you they're impossible, only you get to decide when you stop trying. You shouldn't give up before you've even tried."

"You're full of sage advice, aren't you?"

"It's what happens when you're shy: you read a lot."

Mike grins easily as he greets a few more people in line and dishes a serving of vegetables onto their plates. He grows more serious when he regards Tina again.

"You don't stutter anymore."

"Oh! Umm … I, well …." She shifts around awkwardly.

"It's okay. I think I get it. You found your confidence. Things are different now."

Tina nods in agreement both with the words spoken and unspoken. The potential for something more between them had been there for a while, but it's different now. Tina has found her match in Santana, even if Santana doesn't understand that yet. They've acknowledged it in their own way. Now Tina and Mike can become friends without the might-have-been getting in the way.

"So, any chance of you coming to Asian club?"

"You're just not going to stop with that, are you?"

o

"Fuck you!" Santana screams. "And fuck this holiday!"

The screen door of the trailer slams shut, but her aggravated scream and the splintering of the picnic table leg she aims a kick at drowns it out. She throws herself down on the wobbly bench with the pathetic paper tray containing rubbery turkey, powdery mashed potatoes, and charred stuffing. The cardboard box of the microwave dinner would taste better than this crap Helen calls Thanksgiving dinner.

Santana rams her fork into the turkey. The tines thud dully against the aged, damp wood, and the utensil stands straight up even when she pushes the food away. She's halfway to the corner before she realizes she's made the decision to leave. She doesn't know where she's going or what can make this situation better.

Blaine is with his family, and as messed up as the Andersons are, they're still family. Tina and her hippy parents spend every Thanksgiving serving at the homeless shelter (the one non-religious one in Roswell, naturally). The Crashdown is open, so Kurt will be working most of the day alongside his dad. She can't bring herself to gatecrash any of their holidays. That's a new level of pathetic she's not ready to sink to.

All she has for Thanksgiving is a TV dinner. She wants a family. A real family that shares DNA. Not some new age "family is the people you love" crap. And what's wrong with that? What's wrong with wanting to connect to someone on a molecular level? What's wrong with wanting to say cliché things like "blood is thicker than water" when you're burying the hatchet over something you'd never forgive a non-relative?

Nothing. There's nothing wrong with wanting parents who love you and siblings who sort-of-but-not-really look like you and grandparents who spoil you and creepy uncles you only see at holidays and cousins you grow up with.

Her phone beeps with an incoming text from Tina.

_I'm thankful for you. That I got to know you. That I got to be your friend. That I got to kiss you._

It's so freaking cheesy she has to roll her eyes, but it leaves a smile on her lips. Tina is ridiculously sweet, and she makes Santana feel warm with her bright smiles that crinkle the corners of her eyes and her sappy, motivational speeches. It's a warmth Santana has never known before, and it fills up a special place inside her.

But it doesn't, and never can, fill up the empty place in her heart where parents should be.

* * *

**MAP**

"So why are we meeting at Breadstix instead of the Crashdown?" Kurt asks.

He ignores the empty seat beside Tina and slides into the booth next to Blaine. Their eyes meet, and they exchange shy smiles as their sides press up against each other. Blaine slips his fingers between Kurt's under the table, and Kurt feels his heart flop over in his chest.

"Santana has a new job," Blaine answers.

He jerks his head in the direction of the small stage where a four piece ensemble plays light, soothing jazz. Santana wears a sparklingly red dress with her long, wavy hair cascading over her shoulder. She sways her hips and croons into the microphone like a chanteuse from the 1930's. She has a rich, husky alto with a seductive growl in the notes.

"Wow," Kurt breathes. "She's amazing. But I thought you never did anything that made you stand out?"

Tina smiles from the corner of her mouth. "Sometimes trying to stay invisible makes you stand out more."

There's something going on with Tina that Kurt can't put his finger on, but she's caught up in Santana's sultry song, and he doesn't want to detract from her captive audience. He leans in close to Blaine and says quietly:

"You know, I still haven't heard you sing. I feel like you must be amazing."

"I'll give you a private concert someday."

"I'm holding you to that."

They enjoy a quiet meal while listening to Santana's set. Kurt gets to tease Blaine about ordering a salad and tempts him with calories by requesting an entire cheesecake for dessert.

"What? I like salad, okay?" Blaine defends himself. "I'm allowed to like leafy greens."

"Maybe you'd be bigger if you ate more white carbs and red meat," Kurt teases.

He pokes at Blaine's small waist and discovers, much to his delight, that he's ticklish. A gleeful grin lights up Kurt's face, and he dives for Blaine's again only to be warded off by desperate hands and a body wiggling away from him.

"Oh my God. Cease the mating dance, please."

Santana slides into the booth next to Tina and sends Kurt and Blaine a sharp, disapproving look. They stop their squirming around on the other side of the table while she gulps down half of Blaine's water and leaves a red lipstick stain on the glass.

"Sure. Go ahead," Blaine deadpans.

Santana rolls her eyes at him. "So, listen. I invited you all here to celebrate my first night as a professional performer –"

"But not really. It's Breadstix," Blaine points out. Santana talks over him.

"– but also to discuss recent events."

Solemnity settles around the table as it so often does when they discuss the alien question. Santana gets a signal from the drummer that she has five minutes left on her break.

"The paintings are a map to him. I can feel it in my visions."

Everyone knows who "him" refers to: the Stranger. Kurt and Tina sit back and let the conversation happen diagonally across the table. As much as they're a part of this, it's Blaine and Santana who have the most invested in finding the Stranger. He's like them. Maybe the last of their kind.

"I don't know about this," Blaine says slowly.

"What is your problem? We're so close to finding the third alien."

"All we know about him is that he's a potential killer."

"He won't hurt us."

"Did you feel that in your hallucination as well?" Blaine scoffs.

"I don't know who I'd be if I spent the last fifty years on my own," Santana fires back. "Shouldn't we at least hear him out?"

"It's a mistake."

Santana marches away from the table. The carpet muffles her high heels, but she puts enough attitude in her quick strides to let Blaine know she's not happy with him. Kurt eyes him cautiously. He's noticed this dynamic between them before. They bring out the extremes in each other, sometimes simply to contradict each other. He knows Blaine wants to find the Stranger, but Blaine won't admit it to Santana when she pushes him about it too much. Santana knows she shouldn't push so much, but she wants him to admit she's right.

"Siblings," Kurt mutters.

"You'll never convince her it's a mistake," Tina says. "She needs hope. It's how she survives."

Kurt wonders when Tina gained such insights about Santana.

o

Not four hours later, Kurt finds trouble at his door. Or, more accurately, his window. Santana raps her knuckles against the glass. She's ditched her sequined dress in favor of jeans and climbed up the fire escape onto his roof. She has a duffel bag with her. He raises the window with a nonplussed glare. It's already well after ten o'clock, and his lab report for biology isn't done yet. She sits on the ledge and grins mischievously at him.

"Well, hello there, partner-in-crime. Ready to cause some more chaos together?"

"What are you talking about?"

She swings her legs inside and strides across his room.

"I'm talking about the map. I figured out where it leads. I'd go on my own, but I need a look-out, and I've had two lectures now from Blaine that remind me you've been good at leaping before you look."

Kurt feels a pit forming in his stomach. He can't do this to Blaine again. They got past it twice, but a third time will be too much. They've gotten so, so close in the past few weeks, and if he does this again, it will ruin everything.

"What about Blaine?" he asks. "This is his life too."

"The only father I need is the one out there waiting for me."

Kurt draws in a breath. "You think the Stranger is your father?"

"Who else would he be?" When Kurt doesn't answer what is obviously a rhetorical question, Santana flaps her hands at him. "Well, are you coming or not?"

"Yeah, yeah. Of course. Let me just tell my dad I'm going out."

Kurt really hates being in these situations. He can't betray Blaine, but he can't deny a girl in the foster care system the chance of finding her parent either. So, he makes a quick decision that he hopes doesn't backfire. He thunders down the stairs, as if he's going to find his dad, but stands on the landing and texts Blaine.

_Santana is going to look for the Stranger with or without me. Don't know where we're going yet, but I'll text when I do._

When he comes back upstairs, Santana is on the landing outside waiting for him. They climb down the fire escape and head towards the town square. As they walk, she explains her plan. She points up at a V-shaped constellation.

"That's the constellation I saw in my vision. It's Ares, the Ram." She points to a sheet of paper with hand-drawn copies of the cave paintings. "And this is the symbol the Stranger left us at the cave. If you lay it over a map of Roswell when Ares is overhead – that's April, by the way – it points to the public library."

She demonstrates, and Kurt has to admit that it does look like the symbol is circling the public library. But Blaine hasn't texted yet, and he really doesn't think they should go through with this without his input.

"I'm not sure we should be doing this."

"The Stranger sent us a symbol. We have to send him one back. Come on, Kurt. Don't back out on me now. You're the only one I can trust to not sit on your hands and overthink everything."

"I thought you hated me."

"I do. Except sometimes I don't hate you that much." She shrugs her shoulders. "Or at all."

Kurt figures that is the closest he'll ever get to Santana admitting that she likes him and they're friends. He'll take it. With a deep sigh, he makes his decision and hopes Blaine will understand that he tried to make the right choice.

"Blaine is going to be so pissed at us."

"Welcome to my world."

At the public library, Santana strides across the pristine lawn and unzips her duffel. She takes out of it not the sequined dress and heels Kurt had been expecting, but a coil of rope, lighter fluid, and a cheap plastic lighter. He understands the intention perfectly and helps her lay out the rope in the shape of the symbol the Stranger left on the cave wall. Santana douses it in lighter fluid and flicks the lighter.

They stand back and watch the rope catch flame and blacken the grass. With a wave of her hand, Santana extinguishes the flames before they can spread. They stand over the charred earth for close to a quarter hour, but nothing happens.

"We can't just leave this here," Kurt says quietly.

"I know." Santana stares at the ground ruefully. "You think I'm stupid, don't you?"

"No, I don't," he answers quickly. "I think you had hope, and that's an amazing thing."

"He's not coming."

"Maybe not tonight."

"Not ever. No one ever comes for me."

Kurt feels the pain lacing her words. He knows that tone, the one that means she thinks she's worth nothing and worthy of no one. He's felt it too for so much of his life. He reaches over and takes her hand. For a moment, he thinks she's going to pull away from him. Then she relents, tightens her grip, and doesn't let go while they walk away.

o

Hours later, when the chilly night coats the grass with dew, a solitary figure in dark jeans and black leather jacket strides across the lawn of the public library. He crouches down and waves his hand over a patch of grass. The burned black symbol – the answer to the one he left on the cave wall – appears on the perfect, lush lawn.

The man releases a deep breath, and with it the weight of the world he's carried on his shoulders for sixty-five years. Since the day of the crash – before even, since the ship left their planet – he'd taken a solemn vow to protect these precious children. He thought he'd screwed it up forever, but here they are again, back in his life. This time, he'll do it right.

He presses the speed dial on his phone, listens to the too loud ringer cut through the quiet nighttime, and waits for the woman on the other end of the line to pick up. A click and a hello.

"Hey, Emma. It's Cooper."

He pauses and smiles, savoring the knowledge that, from now on, their lives change for the better.

"I've found Blaine and Santana. Any luck on finding –"

A laugh bursts from his throat.

"You're kidding! So they're all in one place? Em, that's amazing. Get on the first plane to New Mexico. We have work to do."


	7. Significant Others

**ROSWELL**

**PART SEVEN**

**SIGNIFICANT OTHERS**

_December 9_

_This heat wave has made everyone crazy. Heat expands, melts things, makes things boils, sets things on fire. Seeing the effects of the heat all around me has pointed out in a really blatant way how my life isn't expanding. I'm stuck._

* * *

**HEAT WAVE**

In the background, the announcer on the radio drones on about the record breaking heat wave plaguing New Mexico while Tina pushes the broom around the Crashdown. She is beyond miserable in the persistent heat and furious that the repair guys never made it to the Crashdown to look at the air conditioner. Even after the ovens, grills, and fryers have been turned off for the day and the sun gone down, the heat clings to her skin and makes her mind sluggish.

"I'm done back here," Sam says. He yawns widely in the middle of his sentence, and Tina takes pity on him. Not only did they have school today and closing the Crashdown, but he had swim practice before school too.

"I can finish up alone. Mr. Hummel and Kurt are upstairs if I need anyone."

Sam waves goodbye and heads for home down the abandoned downtown sidewalk. Anyone with any sense is tucked away inside a house with working air conditioning or in a pool right now. Tina yawns, curses Sam for it, and returns to sweeping under the booths.

Finally, the announcer stops talking about the heat wave and returns to the music. Tina sways slightly while she gathers up dust and debris from a day of serving food, sprays and wipes down the counters, and rubs fingerprints off the glass cases. A knock at the door draws her attention. Santana stands outside the front doors with her long hair pulled back in a messy bun, wearing the shortest shorts ever made and a clinging tank top.

"If you're looking for air conditioning, you're out of luck. The AC busted around two, and it's been a sauna since then."

Santana shakes her head. "I'm not …. I'm looking for you."

o

Kurt tosses and turns, but finds no relief from the oppressive heat. Every patch of his sheets is hot and sticky, and Kurt has never been so remorseful that he lives on the third floor. His pajama top he'd pulled off and tossed onto the floor long ago, and shortly after his sleep pants. But even lying mostly naked with a fan blowing over him does little to cool him down.

He rolls out of bed and pads down the stairs to the kitchen on the second floor. Normally, he drinks warm milk before bed, but tonight he wants something so cold it makes his teeth ache. He sorts through the freezer, but finds only frozen fish and half a tray of ice. The wave of air from the freezer cools his skin so perfectly he closes his eyes and sighs in relief, but it's a momentary sensation. His mind drifts downstairs where there are half a dozen tubs of ice cream and a walk-in freezer.

Tina and Sam should be gone by now, so he doesn't bother putting on clothes. The Crashdown is an extension of his house, after all. He skips over the two stairs that creak and pushes through the swinging kitchen door, but he stops abruptly when he hears movement in the dining room and ducks behind the expediter's station. He peers around the metal shelving, and his jaw goes slack.

Tina has not gone home yet, and she's not alone.

Tina sits on a bar stool with her back to the counter and her legs wrapped around Santana's waist while they kiss heatedly. It's all tongue and sucking lips and roving hands and everything Kurt has fantasied about doing with a boy – okay, Blaine – when he closes his eyes and dreams.

And the world shifts for Kurt, like an image he didn't realize was blurry suddenly comes into focus.

He always notices the couples at school, but the next day he's acutely aware of their every touch and peck in the hallways. He feels as if they're flaunting their ability to show affection to their significant other. Kurt still believes there's something unspoken between himself and Blaine, and that is most certainly that they're boyfriends. But he doesn't have touching or kissing privileges, even in private.

The picture is crystal clear. He's been friend-zoned by his boyfriend.

o

"Hey, you." Kurt starts when Blaine appears by his locker with two cups of iced coffee in plastic cups with the Crashdown logo. "You weren't at the Crashdown this morning."

Kurt studies Blaine carefully. He looks genuinely confused and sorrowful that they couldn't share a cup of coffee this morning. Maybe he's hurt, too, that Kurt didn't tell him he wouldn't be there for their standing date. That was probably too petulant, even for Kurt, but he refuses to start this conversation with an apology.

"Thank you," he says, taking the coffee.

He turns his back on his locker and leans against the metal bank. Puck and Lauren are across the hallway with their unique brand of wooing happening. Puck presents her with a box of chocolates, and she insults him. It's hilarious and endearing.

"It's funny," Kurt said lightly. "The way everyone is pairing up and moving forward."

Blaine's eyes dart over to the odd couple, and then to the ground. Kurt knows Blaine knows what he's referring to with the way he won't make eye contact and the contrite press of his lips. But Kurt isn't going for the jugular the way Blaine is preparing for.

"Have you noticed anything strange about Santana? Maybe the way she's acting around Tina?"

Blaine's brow furrows. "What? I thought … Wait. Are you saying there's something going on between Santana and Tina?"

Kurt is on shaky ground here. He doesn't want to out either of them – if there's even anyone to out – but he has a point to make and a question to ask.

"Would it be bad if there were?" he says neutrally.

"Yes!" Blaine exclaims so loudly and quickly that it stops Kurt's heart. His face falls, and Blaine flinches at the bare hurt and disappointment there. He tries to walk back his answer, but it's too late. Kurt is already walking away with tears gathering.

o

"Kurt?" Tina calls softly.

Her voice startles Kurt out of his miserable reverie in which he revisited every conversation he'd ever had with Blaine and convinced himself he'd made it all up in his head, because Blaine obviously does not want to be with him regardless of how Kurt had interpreted his actions. He scrambles up from his place on the bench in the girls' bathroom and turns his back on his best friend while he scrubs at his red eyes.

"Oh, Kurt."

She gives him a minute to compose himself and waits patiently until he's ready to talk or tell her to go away because he doesn't feel like talking. When he finally turns around, he's in full on bitch mode, which he always does to protect his fragile heart, and frowns deeply at her outfit.

"Tina, it's 105-degrees outside, and you're wearing a turtleneck."

"I came in here to talk about you," she tries.

He rolls his eyes. "Get out your make up, and I'll cover up your hickey."

"I don't –" But Kurt snatches her purse, pulls out her foundation, and adjusts her collar so he can work on her marked skin. "You know, one day you're going to do that, and I'm going to have a purse just stuffed full of tampons. Just like overflowing with feminine products. And then you'll have to face the reality of your witty quips about our periods at the end of the month."

Kurt frowns and shakes his head at her. "Why would you put used tampons back in your purse."

"Oh, ew! That's disgusting, Kurt."

He lets silence settle between them for a few minutes while he dabs on foundation around the really impressive hickey Santana left there. He debates whether he should say anything or not, but he can tell she's gearing up for another round of consoling him, so he goes for it to distract her.

"I saw you and Santana at the Crashdown." Tina doesn't say anything. "So … you like girls."

"I like a girl."

"Then you're …."

"I don't know. My parents have apparently always thought so, but I'm not sure. Maybe I'm gay; maybe I'm bi; maybe I'm pan. I honestly have no idea right now."

"Do you need to talk about it? I know it can be difficult to come to terms with."

Tina shrugs. "Not really."

Kurt looks up sharply and gauges her reflection. "Seriously?"

"I'm not saying I'm ready to shout it from the rooftops, but I'm not consumed with self-doubt or fear. I'm just … considering all the possibilities." She takes his hand and meets his eye. "Having you as a friend has made it so much easier for me, Kurt. Whatever you're going through right now, Kurt, I want to help make that easier for you. Talk to me."

Kurt draws in a deep breath and starts speaking.

o

"Santana!"

Blaine jogs down the outside corridor to catch up with her and immediately regrets it. It's too hot to do demanding things like jog or walk or sit. Even the rush of air that comes when they enter the arts building doesn't cool him off enough. He self-consciously checks his curls to make sure the heat hasn't melted his gel. His only saving grace is that New Mexico heat is dry. Otherwise, his hair would shame him so badly he could never show his face in public again.

"Can we talk for a minute?" he says finally.

"About?"

"Tina. And anything related to Tina that might concern you."

Santana draws in a breath and rolls her eyes dramatically. She pulls him into the empty choir room. This is where he told Kurt so many months ago that he's an alien. He can't think of pianos and risers without thinking of Kurt too. He wishes she'd chosen another room. After the train wreck conversation this morning, Blaine will be lucky if Kurt ever so much as looks at him again.

Then again, maybe that would be best for Kurt.

"I thought we had guidelines about these kinds of things?" he says. "Before we act on any … urges, we would talk to each other."

"I hate to break it to you, Blaine, but when I have urges, you're the last person I'm thinking about."

"Yeah, I realize that. But we can't let things spin out of control. If it's just about the physical –"

"It's more than that," Santana cuts in quickly.

She shifts around uncomfortably, as she always does when it comes to tender moments. And that's how Blaine knows she is telling him the absolute truth.

"It's a lot more than that with Tina. I fucked it up once, and I know what it feels like to lose the person I care about and to deny what I'm really feeling for some rules we wrote down on a sheet of paper when we were thirteen years old. Things have changed in five years – we've changed, Blaine. There comes a time when trying to keep ourselves alive becomes pointless because we're not even living at all."

o

When Blaine leaves Santana, he knows exactly where he has to go, except he's thwarted by his geography teacher calling him into class when what he really needs to do is skip and go find Kurt. After class, he doesn't catch Kurt in time. He's resigned to talking after school, but Kurt isn't at his locker at the usual time, and when he asks Tina she tells him that Kurt isn't working at the Crashdown.

It occurs to Blaine then that he's not just missing Kurt. Kurt is avoiding him.

He spends all evening wallowing in self-pity like a caricature of a heartsick teenager, and he knows it, but it doesn't stop the ache in his chest or gnawing in his stomach. He gets an idea over a dinner he hardly touches, and as soon as he's excused he races over to the Crashdown where he sits morosely in his favorite booth. Kurt doesn't make an appearance nor does he come down when Blaine talks Sam into mentioning to Kurt that he's in the diner, but Tina brings him plenty of sodas on the house. She starts to look weepy after the fourth trip over to his table.

"Can you stop with the sad puppy eyes? It's getting to me."

Blaine sighs deeply, and Tina whimpers. She sinks into the opposite bench, still blinking rapidly, and considers the black Formica for a moment.

"This is in gross violation of the best friend code, but you're my friend too and if I don't cheer you up at least a little I'm going to lose all my tips because I'm in the bathroom sobbing uncontrollably." She takes a deep breath. "Biology lab. Seven am. Kurt is doing a special assignment for Mr. Schue this week and next so he doesn't have to do dissections."

Blaine's face brightens like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Tina breathes a sigh of relief and goes back to waiting tables.

The next morning, Blaine stands outside the Biology lab at 7:15 and takes a deep breath. He has one chance to get his apology right and save his relationship with Kurt. He doesn't want to know what Santana knows. He never wants to know what it's like to lose Kurt.

When he peers inside, his heart constricts in his chest. Only one bank of lights is on, but Kurt sits directly beneath them. He has dark circles under his eyes, and he's dressed as simply as Blaine has ever seen him: jeans and – _oh, God, what has he done he is such a horrible person_ – a designer t-shirt.

He takes a step backwards because Kurt would be better off with someone who doesn't do _this_ to him, but Kurt looks up at the footfall. His face flashes through several emotions until he settles behind the brave face he wears when the jocks harass him. It's like a punch to the gut. Kurt is shutting him out.

"I'm trying to get these stupid slugs to mate. I'd invite you to enjoy the show, but they're really not into it."

The slimy green slugs on the tray flop around as Kurt's manipulates their movements with two tongue suppressors, but inevitably move away from each other.

"Maybe they're gay too," Blaine suggests lightly.

It earns the ghost of a smile from Kurt. Blaine moves tentatively across the room and joins Kurt at the high lab table. They watch the slugs avoid each other for a few minutes. Neither boy is aware they're gradually leaning into each other until their upper arms are pressed together and temples nearly touch. Kurt sits bolt upright.

"I'm declaring them gay," Kurt announces. His voice is pitched high and tight.

He throws down the tongue suppressors and strips off his gloves. He goes to stand up, and Blaine panics because if Kurt walks out this door, he might never have another chance. He covers Kurt's hand on the table, and almost dreading to see his expression, follows the trail of his arm up his unmoving chest to his wide eyes.

"Blaine, when you said we couldn't be together, I just accepted it. I thought maybe it was physically impossible or something. But when I saw Tina with Santana, the truth is …. I was hurt, Blaine. Why is it okay for them, but not for us?"

"Kurt …," he says brokenly.

The door flies open with a sharp click and all six banks of lights flip on. Mr. Schue appears in the doorway with a bright, expectant smile.

"Hey, Kurt. How are you doing on the mating ritual?"

Kurt's breathless hopefulness turns into a feral snarl that makes Mr. Schue take a step back although he's all the way across the room.

"I was doing just fine," he growls.

Blaine puts a fist over his mouth to hide his laughter, but his eyes dance with mirth.

The world conspires against them all day. If it's not teachers intruding or straight couples stealing all the make out spots, it's the jocks' favorite form of torture renewed by the heat wave: throwing Slushies. So they settle for long looks between classes and texting during lectures. Kurt has to work until close at the Crashdown, so they plan to talk over coffee in the morning, but Blaine can't wait that long.

Kurt looks up from the open journal on his lap when he hears his name spoken softly from very far away. Even at night, the heat is interminable, but at least outside on his terrace he has a breeze. He's in his pajamas, curled up in his lounge chair, and writing about Blaine in this journal. That's why he thinks he hears Blaine's voice coming from street level.

"Kurt, are you there?"

Kurt has a minor freak out because _he's in his pajamas_ and also _Blaine is throwing verbal pebbles at his window_. He appears at the edge of the roof and motions for Blaine to climb up the fire escape. Kurt tugs at his pajamas self-consciously. It's too hot for his monogrammed satin set. He's wearing cotton pants and an old white undershirt from before his last growth spurt. He's absolutely mortified.

"You really can't stay long. My dad …."

"I know. I had to come see you, though. I've been thinking about us a lot lately, and there's something I've wanted to say to you all day. I couldn't wait until tomorrow."

"What is it?"

Blaine swallows thickly and tries twice to get out the words he's come across town to say. When he finds his voice, it's shaky and high, and so full of nerves that it tamps down Kurt's mortification and brings out his protective, worried side.

"Kurt … I'm not afraid that we try this and it works out really badly. I'm afraid that we try this and it works out really well. This connection between us, it's so intense, and I just know it will only grow stronger if things change between us. But one day who and what I am will hurt you. I wish that you could walk away from me and save yourself, but I know you won't because you're you, and you don't run away from anything. And that makes me love you even more."

Love.

It's the only word Kurt remembers. He knows Blaine meant other parts of that speech to sink in, but it doesn't and can't because … love, _love_, _**LOVE**_.

"So if you won't walk away, and I can't walk away, then why aren't we running towards each other?"

Kurt couldn't have said it better himself, so he does run to Blaine. He throws his arms around Blaine's neck, and Blaine catches him around the waist. Their lips crash together with all the passion and want and desire they've suppressed for months, and it's absolute bliss. It's literal stars and planets popping behind Kurt's eyes, and favorite outfits and piano recitals behind Blaine's. It's the connection they've felt since that day in the Crashdown slotting into perfect place and absolute rightness flooding over them.

They part with their chests heaving and temples resting together. Blaine sighs happily and clings to Kurt. Kurt licks at the taste of Blaine on his lips and lets his eyelids flutter closed.

He breathes the words on an exhale, "I love you too."

* * *

**INDEPENDENCE DAY, PART I**

The tardy bell rings, telling the students of West Roswell High to abort their conversations and get to class lest they want an after school detention slip. Tina retrieves her Calculus book from her locker, slams it shut, and spins to sprint to class only to find Blaine blocking her path. She starts to ask him to move as politely as a harried student with a perfect record running late can be, but he's flashing her those big, soulful eyes that make everything else in the world seem inconsequential.

"What's wrong?"

"Something's up with Santana. She wasn't at her house when I came to pick her up this morning, and when I saw her just now she ran into the bathroom."

"Maybe she just didn't see you?"

Blaine shoves his fists deep into his pocket, scratches at the back of his neck, and gazes forlornly at the closed door to the girls' restroom. Tina sighs in resignation. Lucky Kurt is so strong-willed or he'd never get his way with those pleading eyes directed at him.

"You want me go in there and check to see if she's okay?"

"Would you?"

It's like Tina had made his entire _life_. He stands up straighter, looks a little less drawn, and is so genuinely grateful for something so simple it almost makes Tina feel like she's doing him the favor of all favors to walk into the girl's restroom. A chuckle bubbles up from her chest, and she throws her arms around Blaine's neck.

"You have no idea how much I love you, Blaine Anderson." His eyebrows do a surprised dance, and she kisses him on the cheek. "I'll be right back with Santana."

The morning bell rings as she skips into the restroom, but she's not too worried about it. Blaine's sunshine lingers around her heart still and makes the whole five-minutes-behind-schedule morning better. Santana stands at the mirror to the left of the sinks applying makeup, and Tina begins a cheery good morning, but the second Santana catches of glimpse of her, she bolts into the nearest stall. The click of the lock echoes against the tile. Tina's happiness wilts like the balloon in her chest is leaking air.

"Santana, are you okay? Blaine thought –"

"Can a girl get some privacy?" Santana snaps.

"Okay. The return of prickly Santana. Fine. I'll see you later."

Tina opens and closes the bathroom room, but stays in the room and leans against the tiled wall by the hand dryers. After the pneumatic door hisses out its final breath and the wood thuds against the metal jam, the lock on Santana's stall clicks again, and she emerges from her isolation.

Like a punch in the chest Tina finally sees the tear tracks and red-rimmed eyes. She pushes off the wall with her shoulder at the same time Santana sees her, freezes for a moment, and dissolves into wracking sobs. Tina only just catches her before her knees hit the floor.

o

The dusty track by the old railroad kicks up red dirt under Tina's combat boots as she walks slowly with Santana's head on her shoulder and their arms linked together. The heat wave still hasn't broken, and it's too hot to walk outside. Already Tina can feel the morning sun drawing the moisture out of her skin and making her feel clammy. They'd tried sitting in the Jetta, but it made Santana feel claustrophobic so now the car is abandoned a quarter mile away while they walk the tracks towards the distant plateaus.

Santana hasn't said anything since they left the air conditioned coolness of the car, but Tina doesn't need words right now. Their closeness satisfies her need to be there for Santana. Soft fingertips turn her chin and warm lips press against her own. The kiss is light, fleeting, but full of some desperation that puts a pit in Tina's stomach. It feels almost like Santana thinks she's not allowed to kiss her anymore.

"She found a picture of us," Santana says at last.

"Your foster mother?"

Santana nods. "I told her we're dating. I don't know if we are officially or whatever, but it's what I told her."

"We are," Tina said softly. "I've thought of you as my girlfriend since you came to find me at the Crashdown." She runs her fingers through Santana's silky hair and feels the tension melt out of Santana's shoulders again. "So, Helen …."

"Yeah, Helen. She didn't react well to having a 'dyke' in the house."

Tina flinches at the word. "What happened?"

"The usual. Screaming, throwing insults at each other, only about fifty times worse because it was about my sexuality and not about eating the last doughnut or what TV show we watch."

"And then?"

"And then I left when she started throwing things at me."

Tina's heart seizes in her chest. Santana can be grating and defensive, but she sees past all that now to the real Santana, the beautiful and vulnerable and fierce girl, and she can't imagine anyone – much less a parent – treating Santana that way. It makes her want to cry and rage. She stops walking and pulls Santana into a hug. Her girlfriend clings to her and fights the tears threatening to fall again. Tina feels them against her neck.

"You could use your powers."

"I had to stop myself from using them last night. I can't control myself the way Blaine can. She's a harpy, but I don't want to kill her because I can't use my powers properly."

Tina grasps for another solution. Something, anything to make it better.

"We can talk to Blaine's dad. He's a lawyer. He'll know what to do to get you out of there."

"Right. Because the New Mexico courts are going to bend over backwards to help a gay foster kid who's out of the system in four months. Face it, I'm on my own."

Santana pulls away from the hug and retreats three steps. It's well over a hundred degrees outside, but Tina feels so cold.

"No, you're not. You have me and Blaine and Kurt."

"Yeah. Because my merry band of gays is really going to help this situation get better."

The bite in her voice shakes Tina to her core. The moment of vulnerability has passed and the defenses have come up again. When Tina will get another glimpse of the real girl, she doesn't know. She hopes it isn't too late. But she just doesn't know.

o

It comes as no surprise to Santana that they're fighting again. She and Helen are always fighting, but last night had taken on a personal, vicious edge with the gay slurs thrown around. Santana isn't proud of some of the things that came out of her mouth either. Or at least she wasn't until Helen started replacing her name with derogatory terms. Then the gloves came off again.

"No wonder your parents left you out in the desert. Who'd want you?" Helen screams.

"Like you're mother of the year! You only keep me around for the monthly check!"

Santana will never know why it's that particular fact that sends Helen over the edge when she's said so much worse tonight, but it does. Santana has felt much worse than a slap across the face, but with the sharp snap comes an echo of something – a repressed memory of this life or another, but it's too bright and jumbled like all her visions are – that triggers an instinct even Santana didn't know she had.

She doesn't have the flight or fight response like everyone else. She has only one response.

_Fight._

She doesn't realize she's using her powers until all the doors on the kitchen cabinets fly open and bang holes in the plaster, the refrigerator shakes violently, and the window over the sink bursts outwards. Dishes shatter on the countertops and floors, and bright white light from Santana's hand washes out the colors in the kitchen. Helen curls up in the corner with her hands over her head and terror in her eyes. Then Santana can stop.

_The enemy has surrendered_.

"I always knew you were a freak!"

Santana stares in shock at the demolished kitchen. She's shaking and unsteady, and the urge to fight has disappeared entirely like the voice in her head has finally released its hold on her. She bolts from the rundown trailer she's been forced to call home for too many years. She can never go back there again.

The reality of what she's done sends her reeling. She staggers a few steps and collapses onto the curb with her head in her hands. She used her powers in front of Helen. She's revealed their secret in the worst way possible to the least trustworthy person in Roswell. A person who would love to turn her over to the government for a fat reward check.

She can't stay here.

She has to get as far away from Roswell as possible before the feds come looking for her. Helen has seen her use her powers. That should draw suspicion away from Blaine. Everything Sheriff Sylvester suspects Blaine of, she'll think was Santana the whole time. Maybe it's safer this way. She always knew this day would come when she had to flee Roswell at a moment's notice. She has a secret stash of cash for that very purpose.

She tamps down the sobs building in her throat. She always knew this day would come, but she never thought she'd have to leave without Blaine. And lately, she'd pictured Tina coming along too. Kurt as well because Blaine's puppy dog eyes and tragic sighs would be unbearable otherwise. But that was wishful thinking, because now that the time has come, Santana is alone. Just like she always was. Just like she always will be.

o

The raindrops begin to fall when Santana hits mile marker 163 on 285 North just outside of Roswell. Her feet throb with the distance she's walked, and the fat drops splashing on her face sap the last of the reserve that's kept her dry-eyed and on her feet for so long. She sinks down onto the guard rail and lets her shoulder sag under the weight of the world.

She would give anything for a beaten up old Jetta or an impractical rebuilt Corvette or a borrowed pickup truck to slow to a stop and Tina or Blaine or Kurt to take her someplace dry and warm and safe. But that won't happen because Santana didn't say goodbye. They'll wake up tomorrow and discover she's gone and they'll work out from there that she's betrayed them in the worst way possible by using her powers in front of Helen, but that she tried to save them all by leaving them behind. And they'll forgive her because they're her friends. No. They're her family.

Tears mingle with the rain on her face.

Headlights cut through the curtain of rain, and a bright red sedan pulls to a stop fifteen feet in front of Santana. She peers up at the shining tail lights, one last moment of debate tugging at her mind and heart, and jogs to the passenger side door. The Latina woman driving the car offers her a friendly smile. She has curiously large eyes, like she's perpetually surprised.

"Hello there. And where are you going tonight?"

"Doesn't matter. As far as you'll take me."

"Okey-dokie!"

The overly chipper woman pulls away from the side of the highway and speeds up until she hits the speed limit. She spends the next five minutes attempting to set the cruise control at precisely 65 miles per hour. Santana stares in bewilderment. At least she has powers to use in her defense if this fussy woman turns out to be a psycho killer.

"Why are you leaving Roswell?"

"I don't belong there."

"I hear a story in that sentence."

Santana glares at the driver. "Why do you even care?"

"Look in the glove compartment."

Santana reluctantly rummages through the glove box, half wondering if she's about to find a handgun or a dead armadillo or a jar full of teeth preserved from her kills or something even more disturbing that she can't imagine on her own.

"That's it!" the woman chirps.

Santana holds up a trifold pamphlet and frown while she reads. "'So You've Got No Friends and Your Parents Are Tools'?"

"I'm a guidance counselor," the woman says. "I care about every young person I meet because everyone has a story to tell. Maybe the world and your parents won't listen, but I will, and I'll try to help if I can. Or maybe you can just read that pamphlet."

Santana scoffed. "What makes you think I need this pamphlet?"

"Because you're standing alone on the side of the highway in the pouring rain because you don't belong in Roswell. And because you didn't laugh when you read the title."

"I have friends," Santana retorts. "But teenage friends can't make an abusive, homophobic foster mother go away. They can't take back the things I said and did. They can't make this better for me."

"Sometimes the people we think can help us the least are the ones who come through for us in the end. When I first came here, I had this really big important job. I had someone to help me, but I wouldn't let him. He used to be one of my students, so that's the way I always thought of him even though he'd grown up. Then … I messed up my job. I mean, I botched it so badly I didn't think I could ever repair the damage. But, in the end, it was my former student who fixed everything. And all I had to do was let him try."

* * *

**FIRE**

Kurt slides into the booth across from Blaine with two cups of coffee and a nervous smile. Few customers have come into the Crashdown yet, and they're sitting in the back, so Blaine takes Kurt's hand across the table.

"So … umm, what are you doing tonight?" Kurt asks.

"Kurt Hummel, are you asking me on a date?"

Blaine loves openly flirting with Kurt. Now that they're officially boyfriends, he can tease and flirt and beam and make heart eyes as much as he wants, and it doesn't feel wrong at all. In the back of his mind, he knows there are dangers, but he's too happy to let the rainclouds spoil this beautiful thing.

Kurt blushes fiercely. "Sort of. It's just … my dad. He's never really met you, and now that you're my " Kurt's whole face lights up when he says the word, and that makes Blaine grin so widely his cheeks ache "boyfriend, I want you to meet him officially."

Blaine's heart stutters in his chest. He's terrified of meeting Mr. Hummel in an official capacity, but he knows how close Kurt and his dad are.

"Yes. Yes, of course, I'll meet your dad."

Ten hours later, Blaine feels less sure of his answer. He sits across the table from Mr. Hummel in the dining room just off the kitchen while Kurt dances around from the stove to the oven to the sink and back. Whatever he's cooking smells fantastic, but Blaine is too worried about Mr. Hummel to pay much attention to it.

The dining room feels very hot with the higher than usual temperature outside and the oven and range both on. Mr. Hummel doesn't say much: he regards Blaine cautiously, as if Blaine is some kind of predator about to pounce when he actually feels very much like the prey.

"So, Blaine. What is it you want to do with your life?"

Blaine silently curses his luck. The question he can't answer is the obvious one to ask a high school senior. He puts on his best smile and tries to mask the lack of substance in his answer with his enthusiasm.

"I'm really excited for graduation and college. I've applied to some good schools that I'd really love to go to."

"Oh, yeah? Like where?"

"Blaine is being modest," Kurt calls from the kitchen. He reaches far over the range to grab the canola oil to drizzle over the vegetables. "He's Ivy bound. Blaine is our valedictorian."

Blaine flushes to his ears. He tries not to play up his grades because he feels that he has an unfair advantage. He and Santana can flip through a book and memorize it word-for-word. He's never had to try at school the way Kurt and Tina have.

Mr. Hummel's eyebrows draw together slightly, as if he's upset he can't call Blaine a slacker or stupid and use that as grounds to hate him. In all fairness, Blaine realizes Mr. Hummel has no reason to like him. He's the reason Kurt has kept secrets, lied, and broken rules. He wants Kurt's dad to like him, though, if only he could think of something that would impress the man.

"That's not a foregone conclusion. Mike Chang's GPA is the same as mine."

"Then how come you're not both valedictorian?" Mr. Hummel asks.

"Because he's being modest again," Kurt singsongs from the kitchen.

Blaine watches it happen as if in slow motion. Kurt pivots and twirls to face the table with a wooden spoon in each hand. His elbow flares out and clips the open bottle of canola oil. It tips, a gulch of oil escapes the rim, and it drips through the rungs of the burner onto the gas flame. Leaping tongues of fire jump high into the air and lick the ceiling. Kurt stumbles backwards with his arm thrown over his face, but not fast enough.

Blaine surges out of his chair before the smoke alarm begins to sound. Adrenaline propels him forward. As he runs towards Kurt, he holds his palm over the burning stove. The fire extinguishes under his manipulation and smoke billows up from the charred remains of dinner. Blaine runs his thumbs over Kurt's cheekbones, but the screeching smoke detector covers his question. Kurt reads his lips, though, and nods unsteadily. He falls into Blaine's waiting embrace.

Burt watches uneasily.

They forget about dinner entirely when the fire department arrives. The fire is already extinguished, but the blackened damage remains. The firemen are just leaving when Sheriff Sylvester appears in the kitchen doorway. She surveys the damage to the range and ceiling and whistles lowly.

"You're lucky no one got hurt."

"Hello, Sheriff," Burt said. "This is a surprise."

"I heard you had an incident. Thought I'd come by and make sure my good buddy Mr. Clean is all right."

"The fire department was just here," Burt intones.

"Never hurts to check it out. Wow. Looks like you had some pretty tall flames."

Kurt and Blaine exchange worrisome glances. The last thing they need is the Sheriff poking around another case of Blaine using his powers around Kurt.

"It looks worse –" Kurt begins, but his dad cuts him off.

"For a second there, I didn't know what was gonna happen. I couldn't even see Kurt over the flames, but Blaine didn't hesitate. He just …."

"Poured water on it," Blaine supplied.

Burt's eyebrows draw together. The unease grows.

o

After the fire department and the Sheriff leave, Burt goes downstairs to put in orders in the Crashdown's kitchen. The house kitchen smells like smoke and won't be used until it's repaired and aired out. Kurt drags Blaine up to his room under the guise of needing clothes that don't smell like a bonfire gone wrong. Blaine is all apologies the minute the door shuts.

"Kurt, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have used by powers –"

"You saved my life. Again. You have to stop that. I can't compete with you and your white horse."

Kurt wraps himself around Blaine and kisses him gently. All the tension melts out of Blaine's body, and he relaxes into the loving embrace and sweet kisses.

"Oh, I don't know. Your horse probably has fabulous tassels and a feathered headdress."

"Of course he does!"

Kurt's smile fades into seriousness as Blaine knew it would have to. They've managed to get themselves into another sticky situation, but this time it can't be covered up by avoiding or waiting-and-seeing. This is Kurt's dad, and they have to deal with what he saw now.

"Blaine, he suspects something."

"I know. Kurt, you can't tell him."

"I know. I know I have to lie. I just ... I hate lying to him."

Blaine's eyes fill with regret. "I'm sorry I –"

"Don't you dare apologize for saving my life. I'll … I'll find some way to keep your secret without lying to him."

"Can you do that?"

Kurt shrugs helplessly. "I have to."

o

Kurt knows it's only a matter of time before his dad brings up what he saw. His only hope is that his dad doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. But Burt Hummel never accepts the easy answers. He brings it up on Monday morning after Kurt has taken Blaine his daily cup of coffee with cinnamon. He's just stepped into the backroom to take two cheese danishes from the cooling racks when his dad appears at the bottom of the stairs. He peers out the small window in the swinging door, then turns and blocks Kurt's exit.

"So … this Blaine kid. I see he's in here again."

"He's in here every morning before school." Kurt holds up the pastries. "We have breakfast and then go to school."

Burt grunts. "Anyway, this Blaine kid. I didn't really get to know him after the fire and everything."

"I'm sure he'll come over for dinner again sometime."

Burt nods slowly and thrusts his fist deep into his pockets while he considers the floor. Kurt knows the moment is coming, and tries to breathe deeply to make it through without lashing out or clamming up. That will only make Blaine look guiltier.

"You know, Kurt, I've been thinking. I've been working in kitchens my whole life, just like you have, kid. That fire, that was a grease fire. We both know water can't put out grease fires. Pouring water on it, that would make it spread."

Of everything Kurt had anticipated and practiced for, that statement is one he never expected. It hadn't occurred to him that's what his father would take away from the incident. He has no idea what to say to it, because it's a simple fact.

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd have an answer for that one." Burt takes off his baseball cap, runs his hands over his head, and adjusts the hat again. "Look, kid, we've had this conversation before. Between you keeping stuff from me and the what Sheriff Sylvester –"

"Yes, we have had this conversation. We're not going to have it again!"

Burt looks taken aback by the vehemence in Kurt's tone. He's not just angry this time; he's livid. There's no prelude to the explosion; it's just there.

"Kurt, I'm worried about you. I don't trust this kid, and the way I see you acting around him makes me question the trust I've put in you too."

"Dad!" Kurt puts down the plates of pastries before he drops them or throws them. He takes a breath to try and find some rational words. "Blaine has been there for me in ways you can't even understand. I wish I could explain it, but you wouldn't understand. Tina and Santana were there, and even they don't understand it. He's so important to me, Dad. He's not just a high school boyfriend or first love. He's … he's _Blaine_."

"I can see how much he means to you, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't know anything about this kid."

Kurt shakes his head. His disbelief plays over his face.

"He ran into five foot flames to save me. What else do you need to know about him?"

o

Kurt's words echo in Burt's head all day. Whatever he thinks of this Blaine guy, he saved Kurt's life. Kurt is everything to him. He's the last piece of Elizabeth he has left; he's a living, breathing testament to their love. Anyone else, and Burt would build a freaking shrine to them and worship at it every day. Contrary to what some people might think, it's not the boyfriend thing keeping Burt from liking the kid. He's one hundred percent fine with his son being gay.

It's a _first_ boyfriend thing. Burt honestly never thought they'd have to go through this. Kurt would go off to college, find himself a boyfriend there, and when he came home and their relationship had changed, Burt could chalk it up to college. He could blame it on a cold, distant concept. He could like Kurt's boyfriend because he had nothing to do with his son changing and growing. That would all be college and distance and independence.

This – watching Kurt discover a new part of himself, a part totally separate from Burt – he doesn't know how to handle that. He needs to talk to Carole is what he needs to do. She'd been through this – and a lot more – with Finn. Before he could head to the hospital for lunch, however, Deputy Ryerson calls and asks Burt to come down to the station because the Sheriff has some things to go over with him.

"This about the fire?"

"She didn't say, but I would imagine so," Ryerson answers.

Burt decides to stop by on the way to the hospital. The flamboyant deputy – Burt rolls his eyes every time he has to listen to a story about a "long distance girlfriend in Tucson" – shows him back to the Sheriff's office.

"Thanks for coming in, Burt. I have something I want you to see."

The Sheriff passes a file across the desk. She removes her reading glasses and sits back in her chair while Burt flips through the pages. The file is not about the kitchen fire.

"This is the police report from the shooting at the Crashdown. That was months ago. You still have questions about that?"

"Keep reading."

Burt turns over another page with a frown. His eyes focus on a detail three-fourths of the way down the page. "Blaine was there?"

"He fled the scene," she answers. "Take a look at the next section. There's testimony from a couple tourists in town for the Crash Festival. They both said they saw a waiter get shot in the stomach. They also claim someone went up to him, knelt down over him, put his hand over him, and healed him."

Time seems to stand still, and then a torrent of emotion rips through Burt. "Kurt got shot?" he yells.

"That's what the witnesses say they saw."

Burt runs a shaking hand over his face. His brain can't process what he's hearing right now because _Kurt got shot Kurt got shot Kurt got shot_. Nothing else in the world matters. Except that Kurt is alive. He's alive and Burt definitely never heard about a bullet wound. That day at the Crashdown replays in his head, but this time supplemented with Sue's report.

Kurt got shot. Someone healed him. Blaine was there.

"So, what you are trying to tell me, Sheriff? That Blaine has some kind of … healing powers?"

"I just thought you should see this report," she says matter-of-factly.

Burt supposes he handed the file back, went to his truck, and drove back to the Crashdown. He doesn't remember a second of it, and that will frighten him later, but for right now ...

Kurt got shot. Someone healed him. Blaine was there.

"_He ran into five foot flames to save me. What else do you need to know about him?"_

Kurt got shot. Someone healed him. Blaine was there.

The next thing Burt very clearly remembers is standing over Blaine's usual booth at seven in the morning on Tuesday with a very pale, very wide-eyed teenager peering up at him uncertainly. Where his night went, who he startled while he was so out of it, he'll worry about that later.

"I only know two things about you, Blaine. I know how Kurt feels about you, and I know that you saved his life … twice."

If Blaine looked freaked out before, it's nothing to the panic on his face now. But Burt's decided he likes this kid after all, so he doesn't even pause before he says:

"And that's all I ever need to know."

Blaine stares at the outstretched hand like he's never had a handshake in his life. Slowly, he offers his own. From the corner of his eye, he sees Kurt coming out of the kitchen with a plate of fresh fruit and stop short. Then he rushes across the dining room, ostensibly to save his boyfriend. It should gut Burt that the boyfriend gets the full force of Kurt's protectiveness now, but it doesn't. It stings a little and probably always will, but it's also natural, and it's fine because from what Burt knows, this kid has done a hell of a lot of protecting Kurt too.

"I'm a simple guy, Blaine. I don't overthink things, and I don't buy into the crazy ideas that kind of thinking can lead to. The Sheriff and your face tell me it's true that you saved Kurt. That's good enough for me."

* * *

**INDEPENDENCE DAY, PART II**

Tina sits in the window seat in the front room curled up under a light blanket with _Anna Karenina_. She hasn't made much progress tonight with all the conflicting things she thinks and feels about Santana which means she won't be ready for their unit test on Friday. She can't force herself onto the train, though, when she knows Santana is out there somewhere – at her house or Blaine's or God-knows-where – and Tina could help, but she isn't allowed.

"You've been stuck on that page for the past hour."

Her mom's voice draws Tina out of her thoughts. Andrea sits on the bench and draws her daughter's feet into her lap. Tina doesn't object because she doesn't want to stare at the words on the page anymore.

"Bo – girl troubles?"

Tina shakes her head. "No. It's a personal thing with Santana. She'd hate me if I said anything, but … I kind of think I should say something. I don't know what to do, Mom."

Andrea draws in a deep breath through her nose and considers her words carefully. "One of the toughest things about growing up is deciding when to keep a secret and when a secret is too damaging to keep. I don't want to pry into Santana's life, so I won't ask what's going on. But if you ever want to tell me, I'll be here to help you both."

Tina almost wants to laugh. She's a master at keeping secrets. It's breaking confidence that she has such a tough time with. She has a dozen texts and missed calls from Blaine demanding answers to prove it.

"Thanks, Mom."

Andrea kisses her forehead lightly. "Don't stay up too late dwelling."

The sounds of her parents getting ready for bed distract Tina for a half hour, and then the house goes silent around her with only the pinging of the rain against the window and the rush of it flowing through the eaves. With the rainstorm comes blessedly cool weather again. The air conditioner hasn't turned on all night. Tina is left with only her thoughts.

_Anna Karenina_ can't draw her into the pages of the book, and she's close to giving up for the night and reading the cliff notes tomorrow. She sighs deeply and rests her head against the glass. The rain falls so quickly the dry ground can't soak it up fast enough. An inch deep ocean ripples on the front lawn.

She starts up from her lazy position when a shadow moves under the street lamp, and her breath catches. Santana stands in the driveway, her shoulders hitched to her ears and her fists deep in the pockets of her soaked jacket. Her wet hair hangs in her face, and her lips are almost blue from the cold rain. Their eyes meet through the glass, and a thousand words pass between them with one look.

Tina jumps up from the window seat and wrenches open the front door. Only when she ventures out onto the still dry portion of the patio does Santana move. The chill has already moved beyond shivering into shaking.

"God, you're freezing. You'll get pneumonia," Tina worries. "Come with me."

Santana moves on autopilot, following wherever Tina leads her, but holding tightly to her hand. She grabs some towels from the linen closet and a spare blanket, and then takes Santana to her room where the faint white glow of the Christmas lights around her mirror and window casts everything in a soft, hazy light.

"Get undressed and dry off. I'll get you some warm clothes."

When Tina comes back with her thickest sweatpants and hoodie, Santana still stands fully dressed and dripping in the center of the room. Her heart seizes in her chest. Something more has happened tonight than she knows.

"It's okay. You're safe with me. You don't have to talk."

Tina helps her out of her wet clothes and into the WRHS sweat suit, drying off her skin with the fluffy towels and kneeling on the bed behind her to work the water out of her hair. Then she pulls back the covers, draws Santana close to her, and holds her tightly until the tears and shivers subside and she can finally sleep.

The Cohen-Changs are not at all surprised to see Santana at the breakfast table the next morning. She flinches when Mr. Cohen-Chang first walks in and lifts an eyebrow at her outfit which is clearly one of Tina's, but a second later, he pours himself a cup of coffee and picks up his iPad to read the morning paper.

"Good morning, girls." He kisses Tina on the cheek, and flashes a warm smile at Santana. "I take it this impromptu sleepover had an important purpose?"

"Extremely," Tina answers.

"I thought so," he responds lightly.

And that's all they hear about it over a breakfast of fresh fruit and granola. Santana loves and hates Tina's family. Today, she's just grateful they'll let her have the comfort of her girlfriend when she has nothing else in the world.

Tina's parents leave for work with another one of their infuriatingly understanding comments. "You won't skip class again unless it's life-or-death, right Tina?" And completely accept her promise. It boggles Santana's mind that parents could get a call their daughter skipped class the day before, find her girlfriend has spent the night, and then not hogtie her and drag her into first period the next day while also grounding her until she's thirty.

"Do you feel like going to school today?" Tina asks.

She doesn't. She'd rather curl up in bed with Tina and feel safe all day, but the Cohen-Changs trusting looks dig at her conscience.

"Sure. I can't hide forever."

Tina rinses off the last of the breakfast dishes and dries her hands as he comes back over to the table where Santana sits cross-legged on the chair.

"And … how do you feel about telling Blaine what's been going on? I've been answering his texts as cryptically as I can, but it's not long now before he flips out, and then Kurt will be on our cases too to find out what's wrong and why we're making Blaine crazy. I know it's difficult to talk about, but he's your brother, Santana."

"Wait. You didn't tell Blaine? Or Kurt? He's your best friend."

"You trusted me with this," she says. She brushes her fingers through Santana's lose waves. "You've trusted me with a lot of secrets, and I will keep them all to my last breath."

Santana caresses Tina's wrist and leans into her touch. "I know you will."

o

A knock at the door interrupts Mr. Schue's third hour biology class. He speaks to someone outside in a quiet voice, and when he comes back in, he calls Santana out into the hallway. Brow drawn and mouth set, she steps out of the classroom to find Deputy Ryerson waiting for her.

"What's going on?" she asks nervously.

"The Sheriff wants a word with you. Follow me, please."

As a foster child, Santana knows when the police get involved and when they leave it to Child Protective Services, and whenever a uniform starts asking questions, bad things will surely follow. Her eyes flick to the door to her left and the staircase leading to the parking lot. She's faster than Ryerson, and she could hotwire any car in the lot with her powers.

"The Sheriff is waiting."

Inside the teacher's lounge, Sheriff Sylvester waits at a round four top table. She removes her glasses and motions Santana in the chair opposite her.

"Why am I here, Sheriff?"

"We got a domestic disturbance report last night from some of your neighbors, but when we went to check it out, no one was home. You can see why I'd be concerned considering the neighbors said they heard gunshots."

Santana starts and stammers out an honest answer. "I don't know anything about that."

"You were last person to see your foster mother –"

"What do you mean last person?"

"She never showed up for work."

Santana sits back heavily in her chair. Her mind spins with all these details – or are they accusations? – that she never expected. Helen skipping town she could understand after what she saw last night, but _gunshots_? Helen didn't even own a gun that she knew of.

"Neighbors also said they heard a fight. Then sounds. Tortured sound, inhuman sounds."

Santana shakes her head to clear it. "What are you talking about?"

"Where were you last night?"

Santana's jaw works without making a sound. Shock and anger tie her tongue. She can't even remember to act like the queen bitch she is she's so taken aback by this turn of events. But as for her whereabouts, she has an answer. She was with her girlfriend. Her girlfriend who she's not ready to hold hands with in the hallway or take on a date or post about on Facebook. She hitches a sneer onto her lips, hardens her eyes, and gives an ironic answer that would make her laugh if this wasn't so serious.

"Out."

The Sheriff has several more threats to lay on the table before she lets Santana go. She's never been so grateful to leave a room in her life. Now that she's gone through an interrogation, she has so much more respect for Kurt, Tina, and Blaine holding it together before. She pulls out her phone as she hurries out to the parking lot behind the kitchen, her bookbag forgotten in the biology lab and the rest of her classes the last thing on her mind.

She paces around the sidewalk until Kurt appears outside the school. Blaine and Tina follow shortly after, but not before Santana has snapped at Kurt half a dozen times and made him nervous with her pacing. Tina huddles down into her coat and suppresses a shiver.

"We're risking frost bite for a good reason, right?"

If the temperature is below fifty Santana would be surprised, but after the heat wave it certainly feels Arctic. She can't indulge Tina with a playful eye roll right now, though.

"I used my powers last night," she blurts. "I know I shouldn't have, but I lost control when Helen came at me again, and now she's missing and Sheriff Sylvester is talking about gunshots and tortured sounds and …." She exhales deeply and pulls at her hair. "I'll admit it was a huge shitstorm of lights and noise and shit flying everywhere, but Helen never made a sound."

They need a moment to process the deluge of words, but to Santana it feels like they gape at her for hours without saying anything.

"What do you mean 'again'?" Blaine asks.

Santana drops onto the curb and buries her head in her hands while Tina summarizes from the beginning. To their credit, Blaine and Kurt express the right amount of outrage at Helen and don't blame her for not coming to them and going home yesterday. She doesn't think she could deal with that too. But what she really wants to talk about right now are the things Sheriff Sylvester told her.

"What the hell happened to Helen?"

They exchange reluctant looks. Kurt says what they're all thinking.

"You don't think … could it be the third alien? Was he protecting you?"

"By killing someone?" Blaine asks, distressed.

"Helen knew about me," Santana says. "Maybe he was protecting all of us."

o

Sue takes a long drink of her unfortunately cold coffee and grimaces. If she hadn't let Ryerson go early, she'd call for him to bring her a fresh cup. She shakes off the stale taste and goes back to her paperwork. It's the Helen Downey case she's combing through tonight and searching for every speck of evidence.

She would have loved to bring Santana Lopez in for it (and half a dozen other crimes), but any judge would throw it out after reading the statement from the neighbor who called in the complaint: "It started about fifteen minutes after that no-good foster kid of hers left …." If Santana had come back to finish the fight, Sue would find the evidence to prove it.

In the mean time, she has Child Protective Services burying her desk in FYI paperwork. She brushes several more of the memos off her desk with a satisfying thrill. She picks up her mug, and too late remembers the cold coffee. She gags on the liquid and reluctantly gets up to make a fresh pot. When she gets back to her office ten minutes later, she has a visitor.

Helen twists around in the chair she occupies. "Heard you put out an APB. Well, here I am."

"In all your glory."

Sue eyes the woman's nicotine stained fingers and billowing dress. She's exactly as Sue remembers – the worst trailer park stereotype to ever walk the streets of Roswell. This wouldn't be the first time a disturbed member of society made a stink about an event that only happened in their heads. But it feels wrong.

"Where've you been, Patty? Or do you prefer Selma?"

"I went down to Carlsbad. I got a new job down there. I can't take the kid, though. So if I need to sign some papers about the girl or anything …."

Sue leans back in her chair, considering Helen. On the one hand, she has a case to investigate that could possibly turn up evidence of other crimes. On the other, this is exactly the sort of person who should never have been approved as a foster parent by the idiots over at Child Protective Services. This is one crack in the system Sue has a chance to seal forever.

"They've already worked that out," Sue says. She gestures at the memos scattered over her floor. "She'll be eighteen in four months and out of the system, so they're speeding up the process a little bit."

Helen climbs out of her chair with a self-satisfied smirk and makes for the door. Sue follows her with cold eyes. It took Sue years and thousands of dollars to adopt her Becky. And this woman treats motherhood like a label that she can throw away whenever it gets tough. She flips closed the case file.

"Helen, make your exit soon."

"Don't worry, Sheriff," Helen drawls. The smirk tugs up the corner of her mouth. "I'm already gone."

Twenty minutes later, on the line where Roswell meets desert, a station wagon pulls to a stop in front of a lone aspen tree. The driver checks her reflection in the mirror. She takes a deep breath, holds her palm out, and concentrates on the mirror. Hot, white light shoots out of the windows, and when it recedes Helen Downey no longer sits in the driver's seat. The woman looks over her petite features, copper hair, and wide eyes with a pleased smile.

"Good to have you back," she says to her reflection.

Emma steps out of the car and accepts a squirt from the bottle of hand sanitizer Cooper offers her. She crinkles her nose in the direction of the stranger's car, but it had been necessary to keep up the ruse. Cooper pockets the bottle and goes to the back of the station wagon. While he hefts the body wrapped in a blanket from the trunk, Emma inspects the grave.

"Aw. You already dug the hole. That was sweet of you."

"I know how much you hate dirt," Cooper says. With some effort, he drops Helen's body into the hole. He stretches and twists his back before picking up the shovel. "Santana is clear of suspicion?"

"And emancipated." Emma claps and bounces on the balls of her feet. "We're finally doing it right, Cooper. We actually protected her."

Cooper throws her a winning smile and tosses the first shovel full of dirt over the grave. Never one to sit on her laurels, Emma adds:

"But we have a lot more work to do before they're ready."

* * *

**FULL HOUSE**

Carole and Finn come to the Hummels for dinner as often as not, so when Burt casually mentions they'll be over for dinner, Kurt thinks nothing of it. Halfway through the salad course, however, he begins to suspect something unusual lingers on the horizon. Finn is oblivious to it. He alternates between shoveling salad into his mouth and frowning at the sliced carrots like he has no idea what a carrot is. But Kurt feels the strange energy in the air. His dad and Carole drop the bombshell over the main course.

"So … we have some news for you boys," Carole says.

Burt smiles like he's never been happier in his life, and Kurt decides that whatever thing waits in the pause between Carole's sentences can't be anything bad. He's so, so wrong.

"Carole and I have decided to move in together."

Finn pauses with a huge chunk of chicken parmesan in his mouth. Kurt's eyebrows lift in the judgmental way he's aware of, but can't change.

"Don't give me that look, Kurt. This is gonna be great."

"We know this is a big change," Carole says, walking back the promise somewhat. "But we really love each other, and we want to make this work, so we're asking for your cooperation and your patience."

Kurt doesn't feel too sure about this. He's hardly gotten the chance to know Carole. Yes, she's over all the time, but that's a far cry from living together. Finn is even less pleased then Kurt.

"You can't move in together," Finn states. "You've hardly been dating a month. That's against, like, everything you've ever taught me about girls and taking it slow."

Finn has a point, and it's one Kurt hadn't thought of. But Finn himself is another mark against this arrangement. Kurt has nothing specific against him. He's fine as far as jocks who have never been exposed to culture go. But he's an outsider. He doesn't know about Blaine and Santana and alien symbols and special powers. Keeping these things secret is difficult enough with just his dad in the house.

"It's different when you're older, honey. Burt and I have been married before. We've lost people we loved, we've raised sons on our own. We know what we want, and it's each other."

Finn throws down his fork and sulks like a child. Kurt inwardly does the same, but refuses to show it on the outside. His dad kicks his foot under the table.

"What are you thinking, kid?"

Kurt keeps his voice measured. "This obviously makes you both very happy, which makes me happy. I think Finn has a point, but I understand we have a different perspective. There are some details to be worked out, such as where are we moving and when."

Burt narrows his eyes at Kurt. He knows a thinly veiled judgment when he hears one, but he lets it slide because his kid isn't the one with his figurative bottom lip poking out.

"Burt needs to be close to the Crashdown, and this place is closer to the hospital anyway."

Finn is definitely not pleased with that answer.

"As far as rooms go, I can convert my office into a bedroom for Finn and do all my work in the backroom of the Crashdown."

The only worse answer to that question could have been sharing a room with Finn. The small office up on the fourth floor has one window that directly overlooks Kurt's terrace. The one place in Roswell he considers his refuge will have constant surveillance if Finn moves in there. Also, he'll have to share his bathroom.

The more they discuss the arrangement, the more Kurt loses his appetite. All he can think about is losing his privacy and his sanctuary. Finn has invited him and Blaine over a couple more times for video games, but how will he react when he sees them making out on the terrace? Or a closed bedroom door when their parents are gone? He has no idea because he's spent roughly five hours in Finn Hudson's presence outside of school.

"So when am I moving out of my childhood home where I grew up and made fond memories?" Finn asks acerbically.

Kurt appreciates the tone, and they exchange a sidelong look. Maybe they'll be better allies than he thinks. Maybe.

"We were thinking next Saturday."

"What?" Finn demands. "This wasn't even a discussion. You'd already made up your minds! We don't even get a say in this?"

"No, Finn, you don't," Carole replies sternly. "You're going away to college in less than a year. Kurt is going to New York, and you have your heart set on New Mexico State. Finn, you have been the center of my world for eighteen years, and you're leaving soon. These plans we're making now, these are for us. I'm sorry, honey, if that upsets you or hurts your feeling. It's upsetting to me too to see you filling out college applications and going after football scholarships, but it also makes me incredibly proud to see you embracing the next phase of your life. All I'm asking is that you let me embrace mine too."

After that impassioned plea, Kurt crumbles like the perfect coffee cake. This appeal to emotion and reason wrapped up in one will be his death knell. He must remember to always get lectures from his dad and avoid Carole like his life depends on it or he'll get away with nothing. Finn resigns himself to the inevitable as well.

"Can we wait until after Christmas?" Kurt asks. He sees resistance from the parental side of the table, so he hurries to explain himself. "I'm helping Santana move into her apartment next Saturday, and then we have finals and the Crashdown Christmas party. We can start on the twenty-sixth, I swear, but I made a promise to Santana, and I've already started planning the party. By myself. The entire thing. Just like every year."

"I think that sounds fine, Kurt," Carole answers with a smile. He's not sure what else lingers in that pleasant expression. Pride? "You know, if you need some help with the party, I've been known to throw a good party in my day. There's usually plastic streamers and piñatas involved, but you could probably cure me of those bad habits."

Kurt considers whether he wants to spend that much time around Carole. He wants to get to know her, but he also wants to be petulant. Clearly, she's extending a peace offering, and he could use the help. He decides to behave like the responsible son he's been labeled.

"Sure. I could always use some help."

Finn looks like he's been betrayed.

o

"So they're moving in together?" Tina asks incredulously. "That's a little fast."

"I don't know," Blaine says. "I think it's romantic. When you know you're meant to be with someone ..."

Kurt flushes pink when Blaine meets his eye, and they exchange sweet smiles and slow, shy blinks. Santana rolls her eyes and thrusts another box into Kurt's chest.

"Move. Remember? It's the thing we're doing right now."

With a grumble, Kurt accepts the box and trudges back into the apartment building that Santana has chosen. It's older and a little rundown. Kurt wouldn't have chosen it for himself, but then he's never had to pay rent and utilities on the income he earns from a part-time job. Well, and hustling pool, but if Santana had chosen something extravagant there would have been awkward questions about her source of income.

When Helen went to Carlsbad, she'd left everything in the trailer, so Santana deemed it hers to take (although she suggested they do it quickly before someone broke in and took everything). Kurt had borrowed his dad's truck, and they'd loaded everything up. Now the drab furniture fills the small one bedroom. Santana kicks the door shut when she carries in the last of the boxes.

"Now we unpack," she announces. "And no one even thinks about leaving before we're done."

Kurt strips off his jacket and waves his hand in front of his face. The weather had cooled down to normal December lows, but carrying furniture and boxes up a flight of stairs leaves them all hot and winded. Blaine goes to work with the box opener, and Tina searches around the pile for the caddy of cleaning supplies.

"Nothing goes into this kitchen until I've attacked it with harsh chemicals. This place isn't fit for human habitation." Santana cocks an eyebrow. "You know what I mean."

Blaine and Santana do most of the unpacking with their powers, sending utensils flying into drawers and clothes into the dresser. She doesn't have much to fill the apartment, but Kurt dutifully rearranges everything she owns to maximize the aesthetic quality of the rooms. After all the boxes are broken down and tossed in the dumpster, he summons Blaine and Santana into the living room and reads off a list on his phone.

"First ... Santana, turn this wall Tuscan red." He points to an accent wall. She stares blankly. "It's this color," he says, flipping his phone around.

"Wait. Are you decorating my apartment?"

"Of course I am. You finally have a space worthy of interior design, and I am the perfect decorator to bring out all the nuances of your Liza-sized personality."

"Wow, Kurt, that's ..." Santana lifts her chin and reins in her voice to its usual, harsh tone. "... the gayest thing I've ever heard you say. But, fine, I'll do it so you'll shut up and go away."

"You're welcome."

Santana does her shoulder shrug and head bob combination that means 'thank you.' She touches her palm to the wall, and the deep red hue spreads over the wall.

"Now I don't know how far your powers go when it comes to upholstery ..."

Tina watches from the kitchen with a growing smile as Kurt directs the aliens around, tests the limits of their powers and patience, and transforms Santana's sad little apartment into a homey yet sophisticated space. She attacks the next bit of kitchen with rubber gloves and spray bottle.

"Oh, God," she gags, reeling away from the refrigerator. "Not even baking soda is going to help that."

They need another hour to finish setting up the apartment, but once they do, they crash onto Santana's couch, all four of them squished onto one sofa. It's surprisingly comforting being crammed together.

"Don't let me get comfortable. I have to sing at Breadstix tonight, and I can't miss work now because I need to pay my rent."

"You know, if Breadstix isn't enough I could always talk to my dad about hiring another waitress," Kurt says. "You'd look so cute in the uniform."

Santana pulls a face. "Just what I always wanted: people to see me with antennae. No, but ... thanks, Kurt. I have Breadstix and my pool hustling, so I'll be all right. I knew I would be out of the system and on my own in a couple months anyway, so I've been saving."

Reluctantly, Santana climbs off the couch to get ready for her gig at Breadstix.

"Just don't think you pretty ponies can use my apartment as a hookup spot. This apartment is exclusively for lady loving," she calls.

Tina gives a wordless cry of indignation and chases her girlfriend into the bedroom where they laugh and shriek like girls at a slumber party, but probably with more kissing. Kurt sighs deeply and lays against Blaine's chest and traces patterns there.

"We might have to commandeer this place after Finn moves in. He'll probably want to use the terrace too."

Blaine runs his fingers through Kurt's hair the way he knows his boyfriend loves. "We'll figure something out."

"Maybe a chart or something. Heterosexual make-outs Monday, Wednesday, Fridays. Gay make-outs Tuesday, Thursdays, Saturdays."

"Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays sound like really interesting days. But I think the terrace should be all gay, all the time. Finn and Quinn can make out in a hot tub again" Kurt laughs guiltily "or at the library or bus stop or wherever they want. We can't. So, if it comes down to a custody battle over the terrace, you should probably fight for it."

Kurt shifts around so he can kiss his boyfriend. Santana picks that moment to come back into the room. She grabs the spray bottle from Tina's cleaning supplies and squirts them with water. Kurt leaps back with a cry of outrage.

"I said no," she says sternly.

Kurt's eyes flash dangerously. Tina has two hands over her mouth to keep from laughing. Kurt lunges for the bottle, and it turns into a chase around the apartment. Santana thinks holding it up high will thwart him, but he's so much taller it actually makes catching her easier. He loops his arms around her waist and tickles. She squirms and thrashes, but he's strong, and they end up rolling around on the floor with tears of laughter leaking from the corner of their eyes.

"I'm just trying to train my gays," she gasps between laughs.

Blaine and Tina sit on the couch and coo over their significant others. Their constant stream of "They're so cute!" and "I knew they'd be best friends" and "Oh, look! They both fight dirty" finally draws Kurt and Santana's attention. With a mischievous glance and slight nod at each other, they propel themselves up from the floor and the chase begins again when Blaine and Tina scramble up from the couch.

Joyful, carefree shrieks of laughter continue despite the downstairs neighbor banging on the ceiling with a broom until it's time for Santana's shift at Breadstix. They lay around her apartment winded and still feeling the lingering high of so much glee while she gets dressed.

They all feel so normal. They should know it won't last.

* * *

**SPRING AWAKENING, PART I**

It begins with a radio transmission two miles from the crash site.

o

Kurt stands at the counter mixing four Blood of Alien smoothies for table sixteen. He tops each one with a perfect swirl of whipped cream and a fresh strawberry. He's just finishing the last dessert when the bell above the door jingles. He looks up and finds Blaine approaching with dark eyes and sultry expression. He takes a strawberry from one of the smoothies, twirls it around in the whipped cream, and offers it to Kurt. He bites through the succulent fruit with fluttering eyelids and –

"Hey, Kurt," Blaine says brightly. "Nice strawberries."

The sudden shock of reality crashing into fantasy startles Kurt. He starts and drops the metal bowl of strawberries with a clatter. Half the dining room breaks into applause, and he scrambles to gather up the fruit making its escape across the floor. Blaine crouches down next to him to help.

"I hope this wasn't my fault."

"I always knock over strawberries at this time of night." Kurt sounds breathy and flustered, and he's sure his cheeks are on fire. "So, umm ... what are you doing here so late?"

"I have orders from my planet to take over the earth," Blaine deadpans. Kurt stares. "I wanted to see my boyfriend."

Kurt shakes his head. He feels like an idiot for not getting the joke. He is so out of it, and not without reason. His pants are tight, and Blaine's bright grin and pretty eyelashes and full mouth and – Okay. He needs to stop this.

"I'm going to get more strawberries."

Blaine trails after him into the backroom. Kurt brushes past him to get to the cooler where they keep the fruit. As he moves, a trace of Kurt's heady scent wafts over Blaine. He smells like citrus and musk and boy, and Blaine can't help himself. It's like he's spinning through nothingness and without Kurt he'll give into the vertigo, but the second their lips touch he's grounded and safe.

The second batch of strawberries in their plastic tub fall to the floor as Kurt wraps himself around Blaine. Their tongues battle for dominance, licking and sliding in the wet heat of their kiss. Kurt comes out the victor when he catches the tip of Blaine's tongue between his lips and sucks lightly. Blaine jolts in his arms and shifts closer. Fire rushes through his veins, and all he wants is Kurt Kurt Kurt. His back hits the wall, a thigh slides between his legs, and he moans long and loud into the perfect mouth on his.

Kurt swallows the moan and gives back one of his own. He can feel Blaine hard against his thigh, and it sends spikes of pleasure to his own hardness rubbing against Blaine's hip. It all feels so wonderful – their mouths and hands and cocks – and why haven't they done this before? Kurt's hands slip down to Blaine's hips and butt. He squeezes the firm muscle, and Blaine's hips push up. And, God, the friction is a million times better than he'd ever imagined.

He can feel the coil in his spine drawing tight, and his head falls back. Blaine attaches his mouth to Kurt's neck while his hips keep up the perfect rhythm. Kurt always thought 'seeing stars' was figurative, but –

_He's flying through space, past pinpoints of light moving so fast they blur into straight lines. A giant sun burning red, a belt of asteroids, and at the end of the journey, a tiny blue and white planet. And a constant, increasing, steady beeping almost like a –_

"Oh," a startled voice interrupts. "Uh. I'll just ..."

Kurt and Blaine scramble away from each other like they're on fire, but it's too late. Burt has already turned and left the backroom. Mortification settles like a heavy blanket over Kurt. His dad. Of all people. His dad. Kurt buries his face in his hands.

"Oh my God, Kurt. I'm ..." Blaine runs a hand through his tousled hair. "I'm so sorry. I don't ... I didn't mean ..."

"No. No, I know. I didn't either. Oh my God." He sinks down onto the loveseat in the corner that the staff uses as a break room. "Blaine, if the wrong person had walked in ..."

"I know." Blaine swallows thickly and sits down next to Kurt. "We should talk about this. I'll meet you on the terrace after your shift?"

Kurt thinks going back to work with his dad in the dining room will be humiliating, but it's nothing compared to what's waiting for him when he goes upstairs after closing. His dad sits at the dining room table and motions him into a chair. He slides a stack of pamphlets across the table.

"I picked these up for you at the free clinic. They're about ... the mechanics of what two guys can do together."

"Oh God," Kurt mutters. His whole face feels like it's on fire. "Okay, thanks, Dad. Goodnight."

"Sit down. We're not done yet."

Kurt drops back into the chair from his aborted escape attempt. His dad deliberately shifts his shoulders and arranges his face before continuing with his obviously prepared speech.

"Whatever you and Blaine decide to do, I want you kids to talk about it first. I was a teenage guy. I remember how easy it was to get carried away, and there's two of you which is double the chance of you doing something you're not ready for. Kurt, we live where we live and getting carried away at the wrong time, in the wrong place –"

"I know, Dad," Kurt says in a small voice.

"Good. Because I worry about you, Kurt. I worry about your happiness and safety, and now that you've got a boyfriend, I've got other things to worry about. Now, I saw who had who where" Kurt's cheeks burn crimson "so I'm not saying Blaine's a bad guy or is pressuring you or anything. I'm just saying that I hope when you kids decide to go there, you use sex as a way to connect to each other."

It's not until later that Kurt realizes his dad had never forbid him having sex, had assumed he would with Blaine, hadn't vilified Blaine for bringing out this new part of himself, had mostly been worried about their safety. And it occurs to Kurt again just how lucky he really is.

o

"It was the most amazing, incredible –"

"Your shirt's unbuttoned," Tina says.

She points at Kurt's third button, and he fumbles to slip it through its hole.

"Oh, right. We were just in the eraser room."

After the talk with his dad last night, Kurt thought he would be able to pull it together and keep calm around Blaine, but he'd drastically misjudged the effect of Blaine's smoldering eyes. They had spent all of first hour and most of second in the eraser room. His lips feel raw and swollen, and the make-out session did nothing to slake his lust. If anything, he's more frustrated now.

"Tina, I saw things."

"Oh my God, Kurt!" Tina giggles. She eyes his bruised lips. "Did you see these 'things' from your knees?"

"No." He nudges her gently. "Stars. I saw stars."

They wander into their next class, Physics, to find the usual 'refresher problems' (a code word for quiz) on the board covered by the pull down screen and a DVD menu for _The Universe_ playing on mute. Kurt takes his seat with excitement thrumming through him. He'd forgotten they were starting their astronomy unit today.

Blaine comes in a few minutes later and takes his usual seat at the lab table in the very back with Kurt. Mr. McKay begins his lecture with the bell, but Kurt hears nothing. Blaine's very presence distracts him. His eyes are drawn sideways to admire his handsome boyfriend's strong jaw and swollen lips. Kurt's tongue darts out to wet his own sore lips. He draws the bottom lip into his mouth and bites down tenderly. The sharp pain hurts so good. His toes curl in his shoes and shivers fly down his spine.

"These simple molecules are the basis of all lifeforms present and uncounted for," Mr. McKay says. "Or so we think. The conceit that any alien life would take a similar form to us is a belief of a lonely planet once thought to be the center of the universe."

Blaine's eyes slide away from the teacher and meet Kurt's lingering gaze. His chest refuses to rise and fall steadily. His eyes dart down to Kurt's pretty mouth tucked between his teeth, and he shifts in his seat as his body responds to memories they made in the eraser room. He has to touch Kurt, taste his soft skin, feel his firm muscles. He flicks his wrist and knocks his pencil off the table.

Kurt's breath hitches as Blaine slides off his stool and crouches down behind the desk hidden from the view of their classmates. His knees hit the tiled floor with dull thumps and he peers up at Kurt through his lashes. Kurt shifts self-consciously, trying to hide his excitement, but Blaine is right by his lap and has to be able to see it.

He removes Kurt's hand from his thigh and turns it over. He kisses Kurt's palm, nuzzles into his wrist, and draws barely-there lines down his long slender fingers. Kurt's eyelids flutter wildly. His whole body tingles with arousal. Eyes half-lidded, Blaine touches the tips of Kurt's fingers to parted lips.

_He's flying through space past the swirling accretion disk of a singularity._

"Mr. Hummel!" Mr. McKay shouts. "Have you had an insight you wish to share with the rest of the class?"

Kurt snaps back to the classroom with the humiliating echo of a moan in his ears. He actually _moaned out loud in class_. His cheeks burn crimson, and he catches open disbelief and mirth and yes, disgust, from his classmates.

"Mr. Anderson?"

Blaine pops up from behind the desk like he hasn't been on his knees almost bringing his boyfriend to orgasm.

"I was just returning a pencil," he says, holding up the object as proof.

"I'm sure that's exactly what you were doing. I'd like to see both of you in my classroom after school for the primordial experience known as detention."

By seventh hour, everyone in school is gossiping about how Blaine Anderson gave Kurt Hummel a blowjob in the middle of Physics class.

o

"I'm a sexy bitch, so why aren't you all up on this?"

Tina looks up slowly from her homework, and her eyes flick around to the dozen or so students in the library turning their attention to Santana. She stands with her arms crossed over her chest and a superior look.

"Uh ... Santana? If you're not ready to come out of the flannel closet, maybe keep your voice down?"

Santana's eyes widen worriedly, as if she's just realized how loud and obvious she'd been. She slides into the seat opposite Tina and sends a stink eye at Jacob Ben Israel who will not stop staring.

"From what I hear, Kurt is dry humping Blaine in the hallways, dragging him off to the eraser room for some wanky-wanky every other period, and there was apparently some five knuckle shuffle going on under the lab table in Physics."

"I heard it was a blowjob," Tina counters. "But Kurt yelled at me to stop being such a gossip before I could get the real story."

"The point is," Santana presses, "if alien pheromones make all the bitches crazy, why aren't you dry humping me and sucking my tonsils out of my throat and expounding on your love of scissors?"

Tina hides her laugh behind her hand, but it sparkles in her eyes and makes Santana soften a little. She crosses her arms and lifts an eyebrow all the same.

"I'll admit that alien pheromones are really potent, but Kurt is acting like he's insatiable, and that's not quite how it feels. I don't know what's gotten into him. Maybe it's just teenage boy hormones or maybe it's something else that makes him feel good, but isn't actually good for him. He said he sees things when they kiss."

Santana's brow furrows, and her lips part in surprise. She shuffles her posture several times before she settles on arms crossed defensively over her chest.

"So ... you haven't seen things when we kiss?"

"No. Why? Do _you_ see things?

Santana turns away sharply and presses her mouth into a firm line. When she looks back at Tina, she shakes her head and makes her ponytail dance behind her shoulders.

"Of course not. That's insane. How could I see something when we kiss? That doesn't even make sense."

"Oh. Right. See, I thought it was strange. So is this something we need to worry about? Is Kurt in danger or ...?"

Santana shrugs. "Honestly, I have no idea. Blaine and I figured out our powers by trial and error. This sounds about as normal as anything with us ever gets."

"That's not really comforting."

"Second guessing the whole dating an alien thing?"

"Never!"

"Think Kurt is?"

"Of course not."

Santana shrugs again. "Then whether he's in danger or not, he's made his choice. All we can do is wait and see and hope Blaine can fix him if something goes wrong."

Tina shakes her slowly. "That is so not comforting."

Her life was so much simpler when she was a loner freak with a fake stutter.

* * *

**SPRING AWAKENING, PART II**

Kurt throws his head back and moans while his hips work against Blaine's thigh. The headiness of having this boy fall apart in his arms sends Blaine reeling. He doesn't know which way is up or what day it is. He just knows the clean, salty taste of the skin under his mouth and the way sucking and nipping at this spot on Kurt's neck makes him writhe and gasp and cling. If he has his way, he'll never ever stop sucking this spot of skin.

He fights buttons to see more smooth, pale skin and feel more firm muscle. Kurt's vest already lies on the floor, and now the white button-up hangs down to his elbows. Blaine works his fingers under the hem of the undershirt, and Kurt shivers and arches into his touch.

"Blaine, Blaine," Kurt cries.

_A little Kurt strides down the center of the living room like it's a catwalk. In front of the couch loaded with teddy bears, he poses with a surly frown the exaggeration of model's seriousness. He spins on his heel and marches back down the hallway to his bedroom, and then repeats the process with another outfit._

Kurt's fingers dig into Blaine, his hips freeze, his eyes squeeze shut, and mouth drops open. He can feel the coil in his lower stomach snapping, and the familiar moment of teetering on the precipice right before utter bliss.

_He's dropping too fast. Clouds part suddenly, and the New Mexico desert with patches of green forests and fields appear in his jostling view. And a constant, increasing, steady beeping almost like a –_

The door to the eraser room flies open, and Blaine jumps back with a start. Kurt bites down hard on his lower lips to stop the cry of frustration escaping. Principal Figgins arches an eyebrow at the students. A glimpse of the hallway behind him reveals no students. Their pre-first period make-out has clearly gone much longer than they'd thought.

"Teen gays, please come with me to my office."

They hastily rearrange their clothes (and put the discarded items back on) and follow the principal to his office where they sit with dread growing for the next hour as they wait for their parents to come down to the school for a meeting.

"What, exactly, is an eraser room?" Diane asks.

Blaine presses his mouth into a thin line and blinks to keep the tears from building. However angry his mom had been when she'd walked into the school to find her son and his boyfriend in the Principal's office, it's about to get so much worse. On the other end of the row of four chairs in front of Figgins' desk, Kurt passes him a pained look.

"It's the room where we used to clean the erasers so we didn't get chalk all over the school. It's mostly storage now," Figgins explains.

"So, wait. Blaine and Kurt were cleaning erasers?" Diane asks cluelessly.

Burt barely contains his short laugh. He'd clued into what was going on the second he'd seen Kurt's disheveled hair and their guilty expressions, and while he looks plenty angry, it's not born of hating his gay son; it's because he loves his gay son that he's worried.

"They were doing what we used to call 'making out.' We're talking about sexual activity, not erasers."

Blood rushes to Diane's cheeks, and she grips the arms of her chair so tightly her knuckles flash white. Blaine unconsciously sinks down a few inches into his seat. Burt exhales like a winded rhino and turns furious eyes on Kurt. He very consciously sinks down an inch into his seat.

"Rachel Berry and Jesse St. James were making out in the middle of the hallway between fifth and sixth periods yesterday, and no one said anything to them," Kurt protests.

"Is that true?" Burt thunders. "Figgins, are you singling my kid out because he's queer as a three dollar bill? Because I swear to God –"

"Ms. Berry and Mr. St. James didn't cut two academic periods to 'make-out' in the eraser room! Nor did they already have a detention for heavy petting in class."

Kurt and Blaine stare at the carpet.

With their parents informed of their skipping, the reason for it, and punishment (a series of detentions that would go on their records), Figgins releases them to go back to class. They trail after Burt and Diane with their heads hung.

"We'll talk after school," Burt says.

The weight of disappointment in his voice makes Kurt feel very small. Only a couple nights ago he'd promised to be smarter, and one look at his handsome boyfriend had shattered his self-control. He nods once in silent understanding that there is a greater punishment than detention in his future.

"I cannot believe you would do this, Blaine," Diane hisses. Her voice carries through the empty corridors. "We raised you better than this, but you've been tempted into sin again. I just don't know what to do with you. When your father gets home tonight, we're all going to sit down and have a serious talk about your involvement with this boy."

Blaine's head snaps up. "Mom, you can't –"

"Oh, I think you'll find we can. Come home straight after school."

o

Blaine spends the rest of the day zoned out. He worries about what his parents will say tonight, whether his dad will continue sticking by him or give in to his mom's rampant homophobia again. The unfortunate gossip spreading like wild fire means he has to endure more locker checks than usual, Karofsky shoulder checks him so hard in the stairwell that he stumbles down the last three steps, and some Neanderthal with horrible penmanship writes "cocksucker" on his gym locker.

"Blaine, I have to talk to you."

Kurt appears around the bank of lockers dressed in his blue and yellow West Roswell gym uniform. His face drops into a stormy frown when he sees the black marker on locker. Blaine throws him pleadingly eyes, and he shakes his head. He can't have another depressing conversation today. Kurt picks up a clean towel from the bench and holds out the cloth. Blaine adds a few drops of cleaning solution to it, and together they erase the physical evidence of their bullying.

Everyone else has gone out to the gym for warm-ups, so Kurt presses a light kiss to Blaine's cheek. "I love you."

Blaine's eyes swim. "I love you too." He blinks away the moisture and shakes his head. "Um, so. You needed to talk to me?" Kurt looks reluctant. "Please. I could use some normal conversation."

"I don't know how normal this is, but ... Today when we were kissing, I saw something."

"Yeah, stars." A smile flickers to life on his face and in his eyes. "Is it bad that my ego is blowing up over that?"

Kurt laughs and turns to face his boyfriend. "No. But, Blaine, this is serious. I think I saw the crash. It's like I was inside the ship looking out."

"Oh my God. Kurt."

"I know, I know."

"No! I mean …"

Blaine drops the towel and leaves his locker with half the word still scrawled onto it. He pulls Kurt over to the bank of sinks and the mirror hanging over them. He gently turns Kurt's jaw to show him a large oblong mark glowing bright white in exactly the place Blaine had sucked a hickey this morning. Kurt's eyes bulge, and he lifts his fingers to delicately probe at the hickey.

_He's lying on his side watching men in tan camouflage carrying machine guns sprint over the cracked desert earth. Their boots reverberate through the ground, and the panicked shouts are lost to a constant, increasing, steady beeping almost like a –_

Blaine pulls Kurt's hand away from his neck and holds it tightly between his own.

"Kurt, just like you've seen things, so have I. Things from your past. And if you're seeing things from my past, then …."

"I might have answers for you and Santana."

"The thing is, I need to know if what I saw was real or if it was just my imagination, which it could have been. Because, if what I saw wasn't real, then maybe what you saw wasn't either."

"Our visions of each other have never been imaginary, but okay. This is a little stranger, I'll grant you. What did you see? I'll tell you if it was real."

Blaine looks over at the showers. Kurt freezes. No. No way he's seen _that_. Blaine lifts an eyebrow, and Kurt's cheeks burn.

_Kurt stands under the stream of water, washing away the grease and French fries smell of work. The pinging of the water against the porcelain is lost to the memory of whispered voices as he'd passed them in the hallway: "Blaine totally gave him a blowjob in the middle of Physics." If only that were true. Now that the idea has been planted, he can't get it out of his mind. Kurt braces his arm against the shower wall. He imagines a head of dark curls twisted around his fingers and expressive hazel eyes peering up the plane of his torso while cherry red lips stretch around him._

"Oh my God," Kurt cries. "Oh my God. This is horrible."

He throws himself onto a bench and buries his flaming face in his hands. Blaine kneels next to him and tries to pry his hands away.

"No, Kurt. It's incredible. Kurt, I didn't just see what you saw. I felt what you felt. I didn't really think anyone could ever feel that way about me. And … I feel the same way about you. I would ..." His eyes dance from Kurt's wide eyes to a spot over his shoulder and back. "I would do that for you, if you asked me to."

Kurt feels very funny, like he's full of electricity. He meets Blaine's gaze, so open and honest and loving. He doesn't quite know how to ask for that, but he does the best he can and trusts they'll understand each other like they always do.

"I have to find out what's going on."

o

Santana answers the knocking to find Blaine and Kurt standing on her welcome mat. They both look keyed up and nervous.

"Can we use your apartment for a while?" Blaine asks.

"Wanky."

Exasperation steals over their faces and they push their way inside. Santana has to listen to ten minutes of euphemisms before she understands what they're saying. Kurt has visions of the '47 crash that are leading him somewhere, but every time he gets close to figuring out where, it's coitus interuptus.

"So, let me get this straight. Kurt needs to shoot his load to see where the visions are leading him?" She receives glowers and shrugs her shoulders. "I say go for it. Pop those cherries, boys. But don't get lube on my couch."

"_Santana._"

"What? Blaine, you have the top line ever with 'it'll help me find my home planet,' and you're not taking it? No guy is that sensitive. Don't make me beg you to do what you two obviously want to."

She hops up from the couch and saunters over to the door with her coat over her arm. She flips off the light switch before she leaves and uses her powers to ignite several candles. She winks lasciviously at the embarrassed and furious boys on the couch.

"I've got some Florence + the Machine on my iPod in the dock," she calls as she closes the door. "And wash the sheets when you're done."

Kurt and Blaine are silent for a pregnant moment.

"I hate her so much," Blaine says weakly.

Kurt slips his arm around his boyfriend's waist and nuzzles against his neck. He should feel utterly humiliated right now, but all he can think about is Blaine and kissing him and touching him. There's something not right happening with his body, but he knows it will all be okay if he trusts Blaine completely.

"I still want you," he whispers into Blaine's ear.

Blaine's breath catches, and he feels tingly all over, like he's full of electricity. He twists and brings their mouths together, and it's perfection the way Kurt makes him feel so much all at once. They strip off their outer layers by silent mutual agreement, and still nothing has progressed further than usual. Kurt in his black jeans and white undershirt looks so stunning, and he lays back when Blaine presses forward. The couch is too small, so they move into the bedroom and lay facing each other on the cool sheets.

Blaine runs his hands up Kurt's arms the way that makes him crazy, and he shivers and gravitates towards Blaine. He moves in for a kiss, but Blaine stares transfixed at Kurt's arms, and he redirects his attention. As Blaine's fingers travel over his body, trails of glowing white light shining from beneath his skin follow. Kurt brushes his fingers over Blaine's arms, but nothing happens.

"I can't do it to you."

"I'm already glowing everywhere: my toes, my heart, everywhere."

Blaine kisses him deeply and raises glowing trails everywhere he touches. Kurt feels like he's floating off the bed. He wants to reciprocate; he's desperate to touch Blaine too, but his body refuses to move except in response to Blaine's fingers and mouth roving over his torso, pushing up and removing his undershirt, and then back on his mouth and in his hair drawing him deeper into the thrumming, pulsing pleasure taking over his body.

There are no whispered, nervous questions. They're sure; they _want__._

Kurt cries out into Blaine's mouth, opens wide for the exploring tongue, when a hand snakes between his legs and cups his aching cock through his jeans. His back arches. He's almost coming already, and that's so embarrassing, but so so good too.

_He's lying flat on his back in the ground. Dirt lands on top of his eyes, and through the clumps he sees a large metal structure and a constant, increasing, steady beeping._

"Oh my God!" Tina shrieks. She turns sharply and puts her back to the boys on the bed, but covers her face with her hands too. "I can never unsee that."

Kurt and Blaine scramble around to collect their clothes and straighten the sheets and fix their hair. Kurt cannot believe the amount of cockblocking happening here.

o

Kurt and Tina sit in tense silence for most of the drive.

"I'm worried about you, Kurt," she says at last. "This isn't like you. You've always been so physically distant, and you and Blaine haven't been dating that long."

"I have my dad for lectures. And, for the record, Blaine and I have been dating since September, even if he didn't know it."

"No, I'm not lecturing. I just don't think your first time should happen because of outside forces. You don't want to look back and remember that what was really important got lost because you're trying to figure out these visions you're having."

She has a point, which Kurt concedes. He debates whether to say anything, but she is his best friend, and if he can't talk to her, then he can't talk to anyone.

"I think I want to anyway, Tina. I love Blaine, and he loves me, and we're meant to be together. So why shouldn't we be together in every way?"

"Are we even sure that's safe? I mean, we are different species."

"You're the first one who took that leap!"

"Santana and I only kissed." Kurt fixes her with a skeptical look. "Okay, fine. We did a little more than kiss. But I wasn't having visions or orgasms in class."

"I didn't … not in class!" Kurt sputters. "Or at all with Blaine, I might add. I've got to be the most sexually frustrated guy in all of New Mexico."

Tina presses her lips together to fight off a building laugh.

"I'm not funny, Tina! Do you have any idea what that feels like?"

"Contrary to what guys think about girls, yes, we do know what that feels like. And if you'd like me to explain female anatomy in great detail" Kurt scrunches up his nose. "Right. So to the really important point of the night." She pauses, waiting for Kurt to answer, but he doesn't know what she's referring to. "Uh. Maybe the fact that you got caught grinding in the eraser room, Principal Figgins called your dad down to the school to talk about it, and then _you didn't come home after school_?"

"Shit," Kurt mumbles.

"Your dad has this permanent protruding vein," Tina says, pointing to her forehead. "Just ... whatever you tell him, tread lightly."

Twenty minutes later, Kurt pulls into the garage in his dad's pickup truck that he'd left in the parking lot after school. With a deep breath for fortitude, he climbed the apartment stairs like a prisoner walking to his sentencing.

But the yelling and raging in the Hummel house looks like unicorns and rainbows compared to what happens in the Anderson house.

* * *

**SPRING AWAKENING, PART III**

When Blaine steps into the living room at eight o'clock, he senses trouble, but not until his mother comes at him with her lips curling does he remember that he'd been told to come home directly after school.

"Diane," Christian says wearily. "Screaming won't do any good."

"He's been with that boy," she spits. "Look at his hair. And ..."

Blaine purses his lips self-consciously. He and Kurt have been kissing so much lately they're always red and puffy. She turns away from him in disgust, and he wonders if it's because of the kissing or because she thinks he's a 'cocksucker' too.

"Let's sit down at the table and discuss this."

Christian ushers the family into the dining room, and Blaine feels grateful for that at least. Last time they'd talked about his sexuality as a family, they'd sat in the living room – his parents on the sofa opposite him in the armchair. At least now they're evenly distributed at the round table.

"Let's deal with the issues as they've come up," Christian begins evenly. "Blaine, your mother tells me you were caught skipping class."

"To have sex with that –"

"His name is Kurt," Blaine snaps. "And we're not ... we're not sexually active."

"So he tells you," Diane scoffs. "But you don't wear pants that tight –"

"Diane, please. We're talking about our son, not Burt Hummel's. Blaine, what do you have to say for yourself about skipping class?"

Blaine takes a deep breath to tamp down his anger. His dad is trying to be reasonable, and it would be better not to make his one and only sometimes-ally angry.

"Yes, I skipped class. I've accepted Principal Figgins's punishment, and I'll accept whatever punishment you think I should have."

Diane opens her mouth, but Christian cuts her off. "That's very mature of you, son. I think as punishment for skipping class, you should spend a couple nights a week as a volunteer tutor at the church's school so you can see what happens when academics take a backseat."

"Yes, sir. I'll talk to Pastor Warren on Sunday."

"Good. There's also the issue of you not coming home directly after school like your mother told you to."

Diane lifts an eyebrow in challenge. Blaine considers his wording before he answers.

"Mom, I apologize for staying out tonight. I honestly forgot you'd told me come straight home."

"I'm sure, Blaine. Because your father and I never speak to you after you've gotten in trouble," she replies derisively.

"It's true! I got distracted –"

"By that boy?"

Blaine doesn't have an answer that won't get him into worse trouble, so he stays silent. It sets his mom off on a tirade against "the forces of evil leading him into temptation," by which she obviously means Kurt. He clenches his fists and grits his teeth and tries not to rise to the bait, but she won't stop.

"How can you be so ungrateful? We took you in, we adopted you. Without us, you could have turned out like that Santana."

"'That Santana'? What does that even mean?"

"I know what people say about her!"

"Gossip, Mom? I'm pretty sure the Bible has something to say about that!" Blaine fires back.

"You dare bring up the Bible when you're breaking a dozen of God's laws. Cavorting and ... and _sodomizing_ with that boy."

"Do you even hear yourself right now? You sound absolutely insane!"

"I won't have that in my house, Blaine! I'd rather have no son than a gay son!"

Silence.

Blaine and Christian stare at her in shocked disbelief, but Diane holds her chin high and stares at Blaine resolutely. Anger begins to crack revealing raw pain. He always knew she thought this way, but to actually hear it makes it more real. It will always be a barrier between them, a memory that separates the mother and son who used to sing gospel songs together on Sunday mornings and take turns tying Christian's bowties and have tickle wars on the living room floor.

"Fine." The word cracks against his lips; she shows no regret. "Then I won't live in this house, and you don't have a son."

"Stop it, both of you. We're a Christian family. That means we act with compassion and humility even when we don't agree with others."

"Does the Bible say homosexuality is a sin?" Diane yells.

She stares down her husband until he jerks his head once.

"Does the Bible command you to love me as Christ loved the Church?" she presses.

Christian's eyes flick to Blaine who stares back with the flame of hope dying in his eyes. If life is a series of moments, then this is surely a crossroad. He can feel the inevitable divide between father and son as acutely as between mother and son.

"Does the Bible," Christian asks calmly, "command me to not provoke my son to anger?"

Diane balks, but she has to nod.

"Does the Bible command me to do all I can to encourage my son? Does it tell me God has given him to me as a reward?"

She nods shortly.

"Then I suppose I have a conundrum on my hands. I believe I should pray about this. In case you're curious, Diane, I'll be praying until Blaine goes off to college. So don't bring this up again until then," he warns darkly.

o

A sharp rapping draws Kurt's attention to the window. He peers through the dark glass, but can't make out who's climbed onto the terrace until a hand glows white against the glass. He throws off the covers and springs out bed. Cold wind sends a shudder up his spine when he opens the window, but he pulls on his robe, jams his feet into slippers, and climbs outside with some assistance from Blaine.

"I couldn't sleep," Blaine says brightly.

His breath mists in front of his face, and despite the chill, Kurt feels warm all over.

"Me either. So I take it things with your parents didn't go as terribly as I've been imaging?"

"Oh, no. They were pretty terrible, but my dad found his backbone. It was stunning to watch. He whipped out Bible verses to use against my mom and everything. I think he really likes you."

Kurt scrunches up his nose. "I don't know about that. I think he likes that I make you happy."

"Oh, God. You do, Kurt."

Blaine grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls him into a deep kiss. They break away when they're breathless, and white mist puffs up between their faces.

"Listen, Blaine, when we were … at Santana's. I saw something else. Something was being buried by the old radio tower on Highway 42.

"That's right near the crash site."

"There's something out there. We have to go find out what it is."

After Kurt changes into a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt under a fashionable coat and scarf, they climb down the fire escape and hurry to Blaine's car that he can't bring himself to hate quite as much as he used to. They speed through town and onto Highway 42 with all the giddy elation of teenagers out of their beds at two o'clock in the morning.

Blaine parks near the old radio tower, and they take a moment to appreciate the ocean of stars overhead. This far from Roswell's light pollution, they sparkle like a million fireflies.

"So, I guess we have to decide what our next step is. We could start digging. Or we could look for the next clue."

"Yeah, that sounds good. I can't not touch you."

Kurt grabs Blaine and crashes their lips together. Instantly, he hears it.

_A constant, increasing, steady beeping._

"Get the shovels!"

Blaine looks disappointed, but also eager. He takes the two short-handled shovels from the trunk and follows Kurt over the steadily rising terrain. He turns sharply away from the radio tower and veers into a crescent shaped rock formation.

"It's here."

They dig for five minutes before Blaine's shovel hits something, and then they wipe away the dirt with their gloved hands. Blaine lifts from the ground a large, egg-shaped object. It's metal, but smoother than any purified ore he's ever seen before. On the surface of the orb is a familiar symbol.

"It's the symbol the Stranger left us."

o

Cooper sits on the low outcropping of rock and watches Blaine and Kurt sleep. He thought they'd run after they found the orb, but they're not quite as intelligent as he thought as evidenced by the fact that they're curled up under an afghan on private property in the desert at night with a piece of alien technology on display for the world to see.

Teenagers.

Still, he can't say he's disappointed. He hasn't seen Blaine in person in more years than he cares to count. He props his elbow on his knees and his chin on his fist and smiles at the way they huddle together to fight off the chill. He wonders if they stayed up discussing the orb – what it is, what it does, how to tell Santana, where to hide it.

They probably did. From what Cooper can tell, they're a thoroughly adorable couple. He's happy that Blaine found a human who sees him for who he is and not the monsters in movies. He just hopes that human connection isn't a problem later.

Kurt starts when he cracks open an eyelid and finds Cooper staring at him. Well, not Cooper. The Native American farmer who owns this land. Cooper borrowed his appearance for authenticity.

"This is private property. You two better get home."

Kurt shakes Blaine awake. He snuffles in his sleep and kicks his foot out the end of the blanket. Cooper's heart seizes at the too familiar gesture and the onslaught of memories it brings. He's not like Emma who can turn the emotions on and off. The memories are always with him. He has to get out of here before he does something stupid like bear hug Blaine or break down in tears and ruin everything.

Luckily for him, the kids scramble when they realize it's nearly morning and they've narrowly escaped prosecution – particularly after the couple days they've had. It almost makes Cooper chuckle. A blowjob in Physics? He really had no idea manipulating Kurt's hormones to kick Blaine's emotions up a notch would release his buried memories quite that well.

He's so freaking proud.

o

Blaine puts the car into park in the side lot of the Crashdown. He has about a quarter hour to get home and pretend he's been asleep in his bed all night. He leans across the console and presses a kiss to Kurt's lips.

"Any flashes?"

"No."

"Me either."

Kurt's smile fades into something more serious, like he's gearing up for bad news. It twists Blaine's stomach because he's spent the drive back to Roswell thinking up a question of his own.

"Blaine, everything that happened between us … was that real or just the signal? Because a person could feel like they've served their purpose."

"You know, that goes both ways. Some guys would give anything to see themselves fly through space."

They laugh easily for a moment, secure in the knowledge that, signal or no, they would have come to this point in their relationship sooner rather than later. You can't feel this way about a person without sharing every part of yourself with them.

"Is it ever just us?"

"I think it's always us."


	8. A Christmas Carol

**ROSWELL**

**PART EIGHT**

**A CHRISTMAS CAROL**

_December 20_

_There are days when everything seems wrong. The little things irk you for no reason. And then there are days like today when the world sings to you from the minute you open your eyes in the morning to the minute you shut them again at night._

* * *

**CHRISTMAS SPECIAL**

_"Voices singing let's be jolly. Deck the halls with boughs of holly."_

Kurt twirls around on his socked feet, spinning from the oven to the counter laden with cooling racks. He sways his hips and bobs his head while he sings along with Bobby Helms. His dad pads into the kitchen a few minutes later in flannel pajamas. The scent of Christmas spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger – draws him to the breakfast table earlier than usual. He pats his rumbling tummy.

"Cookies for breakfast?" he asks with a gravelly voice.

"No, Dad. We're having a holiday party in study hall, and since I'm in honors study hall – which is held in the giant cafeteria for a reason – although I'm perpetually surprised there are that many honors students at West Roswell High considering what I observe on a daily basis – I have a lot of cookies to bake."

Burt makes a disinterested sound and noses around the cooling racks while Kurt slides the fresh sugar cookies off the baking sheet. He finally finds the M&M cookies he's searching for. It looks like Kurt did a little something extra this year. There's a swirl of some reddish spice in the cookie. Burt takes a bite and gags.

"What the hell did you do to these, Kurt?" he sputters.

Kurt huffs and glares. He takes the plate of perfectly arranged cookies and hugs it close to his chest protectively. "Dad! These are part of Blaine's Christmas present."

"God, my mouth is on fire! What are those things?"

"M&M and Tabasco Swirl."

Burt pulls a face over the rim of his glass of milk. "What? Is Blaine secretly a pregnant woman?"

Kurt goes back to his cookies with a lofty expression while his dad settles for warming up the extra apple pancakes from yesterday's breakfast. By the time he's placed all the cookies into plastic tubs and grabbed his school bag, it's already 7:30 and Blaine is waiting for him downstairs with two mugs of coffee and two yogurt parfaits.

"Oh. Look at this. The wait staff is letting you into the kitchen now?"

"Apparently I'm here a lot?"

Kurt leans down to kiss his boyfriend before sliding into the booth across from him. The tubs of cookies piled high on the table keep drawing Blaine's eye, so Kurt relents and offers him the special plate of M&M and Tabasco Swirl.

"For me? Thank you, Kurt."

Blaine reaches for the bottle of Tabasco on the table, but Kurt stops him. Looking skeptical, Blaine bites into the cookie. His eyes widened comically, and his whole face lights up.

"Oh my God! Kurt! These are amazing," he exclaims with his mouth full.

Kurt lets it pass this once since he's getting a compliment.

o

The whimsical atmosphere on the last day of school before winter break sweeps over West Roswell. The teachers give easy assignments or drop the pretense altogether and break out the games. No one says anything about students sucking on candy canes – except Karofsky and Azimio who do crude simulations with theirs and snicker in Blaine's direction – or eating cookies at nine o'clock in the morning.

Kurt's vivacious mood is infectious, though, and he makes Blaine's smile bigger and brighter than usual. The Christmas cheer gets ratcheted up several notches between sixth and seventh periods.

"Kurt!" Mr. Schuester calls down the senior hallway. "I've been looking for you all day. I was wondering if you could come by my classroom for a few minutes after school."

"Hello, Mr. Schuester. Have more slugs that need to be persuaded to mate?"

"No," the biology teacher laughs. "No, nothing like that. It's something much more fun, I think."

When he has Kurt's promise and leaves, Santana cocks an eyebrow at him.

"Creepy much?" Santana asks. "And did you forget you roped me and Blaine into being your pack mules while you shop for your Crashdown Christmas party?"

"There's no party on the end. It's just the Crashdown Christmas," he corrects.

"Whatever."

"We can wait a few minutes," Blaine says, throwing Santana look, but it turns mischievous a second later, "while Mr. Schue does 'something fun' with my boyfriend." Santana snorts a laugh and Blaine wraps his arm around Kurt's waist. "As long as he remembers who makes him see literal stars."

Kurt's cheeks heat up, and he glances around the hallway nervously, but they're mostly alone except for Becky who has some kind of exploded tinsel monster inside her locker. Seriously, how can she even find her books in that mess?

"Whatever you two are going on about, can we do it on our way to class?" They agree to start walking. "Thank you."

After the final bell rings and releases the students for winter break, Kurt makes his way to the biology lab with Blaine and Santana in tow. It's a mad rush to the parking lot, so they have to fight against the crowd to make it to the classroom.

"Kurt, dude!" Finn yells, also fighting against the current. "My mom told me I had to help you lift heavy stuff today."

Kurt motions for Finn to catch up and quickly explains they have to talk to Mr. Schuester before they can leave. When they step inside the classroom, they find a hodge-podge collection of students: Tina, Artie, Mike, and Sam. Mr. Schue is surprised but delighted to see the extra bodies following Kurt. He claps his hands and grins at the assembled students like he used to look at New Directions before they lost Regionals and he got fired as glee club director.

"A friend of mine down at the local PBS station called today with a really great opportunity. They lost the rights to the Yule Log burning, and they need to fill the spot … with a Christmas special."

A ripple of interest passes around the room, but no one is more excited than Kurt. He bounces around in his seat beside Blaine and positively quivers with excitement.

"I know we didn't always see eye-to-eye when we were a team, but we always pulled together in the end and came through. The truth is, I miss seeing you guys perform. When I watch Vocal Adrenaline and don't see you up on those risers it doesn't feel right. Your voices have been silenced for too long. I want you to let the world hear them again."

"Exactly how many PBS viewers are there in Roswell?" Blaine sasses.

"Santana, I've heard you sing at Breadstix," Mr. Schue says. "You're welcome to join us too. Finn, Blaine. Can you guys sing?"

Both boys freeze. Blaine turns sharply to Santana and shakes his head. Singing in a restaurant is one thing, but going on television violates every part of their strategy to blend in and stay alive. She sighs and shrugs her shoulders in resignation.

"Hell yeah Blaine can sing," Sam says. When Blaine throws him a startled look, Sam explains. "Your family sits right behind mine in church every Sunday."

"All right!" Mr. Schue cries. "Finn? What about you?"

Finn looks torn, like he wants to say yes, but doesn't want to throw in his monogrammed WRHS letterman jacket with this band of outcasts. He catches Kurt's appraising look, though, takes a breath for fortitude, and nods.

"Yeah. I can sing."

They get approximately four steps from the biology classroom when Kurt slides his arm through Blaine's elbow and tugs him back while the others chatter excitedly about the Christmas special. Artie, the director, promises to hear their ideas, but makes no guarantees.

"You can sing," Kurt says. "So why have I never been serenaded?"

"I can rectify that."

"Can you?"

"Oh yes."

"And when will you do this?"

"Oh, so we're scheduling romantic serenades too?"

Kurt nudges him with his hip. "Don't make fun of my schedules. I'm a very busy man, Blaine Anderson."

o

Kurt _is_ incredibly busy, and now he has the Christmas special on top of the Crashdown Christmas. To make matters worse, they're scheduled back-to-back. They'll finish taping the special at five o'clock (to be aired at eight o'clock) and the Crashdown Christmas starts at seven on Christmas Eve. Luckily, Kurt has Carole to assist him with all the plans or he doesn't know how he would get any sleep.

The fact is rehearsal for the special has to take priority. Kurt can stay up into the wee hours of the morning stringing lights and tinsel, but he can't select songs and practice with his duet/quartet partners except during the times Mr. Schue has secured the choir room for their use.

Being in the school after hours feels strange, but reminds Kurt of the times he stayed late for glee practice. Kurt, Blaine, Tina, and Santana arrive in the choir room first. They flip on the lights, and take in the plastic chairs on the risers and the empty classroom. Artie texted them all to come prepared with a song selection, so they lay their sheet music on the piano for the surly accompanist whenever he decides to make his appearance.

"It feels strange being back in here," Tina comments.

"Do you remember the last time we were in here?" Kurt asks.

In response, Blaine points to the sky and lifts his arm higher. The choir room holds a lot of memories for Kurt, but none as life-changing at the day Blaine admitted to being an alien – or "not of this earth," as he preferred to call himself.

"So … am I going to hear you sing for the first time when you perform your solo song selection?" Kurt wonders.

"I take it that was a hint."

"More of a command, really," Kurt says lightly.

Blaine's eyebrows dance, and he leans in for a kiss. "As you wish."

Tina slides onto the piano bench and flexes her fingers. Without asking what song Blaine wants to sing, she begins playing a Christmas standard and looks pointedly at Kurt. He pretends to find it a great burden, but he's only too happy to sing this duet with Blaine.

"_I really can't stay._"

"_But baby it's cold outside._"

Kurt almost misses his next line he's so enamored by Blaine's smooth, clear tenor and the flirty performance directed at him. After the initial swooning, he's able to continue singing his part and shamelessly flirt with his boyfriend while they dance around the choir room. When they come to the line: "_Gosh, your lips looks delicious_" he sees Santana by the piano fanning herself with her hand and Tina beaming widely.

"_Ooh, baby, it's cold outside_," they finish in harmony.

Tina plays the final few notes on the piano, and the girls break into applause. The boys kiss again around grins.

"Wonderful performance," Artie says, rolling into the room. "But perhaps a bit too flirty for my vision of the Christmas special. Think more wink-and-nudge: best friends and holiday roommates."

Artie releases them from rehearsal two hours later when they have a firm song list and the beginnings of a script coming together. Kurt and Blaine will host the black-and-white holiday special and open with _Let It Snow_. Santana and Tina will play their party guests and half of the quartet on _My Favorite Things_. Finn and Sam will drop by for a rockabilly rendition of _Santa Claus is Coming to Town_, and Mike will have a tap interlude.

Tina and Santana say goodbye outside and head downtown to the revival theatre showing _Miracle on 34__th__ Street_. Santana doesn't look very excited by their Saturday night date plans, but the way Tina hugs her arm and grins at her so adoringly melts her resistance.

"I still can't believe Wheels McGee said no to me singing _Santa Baby_," Santana grumbles.

"You can sing _Santa Baby_ to me anytime," Tina says coyly.

Kurt laughs at their banter as he links his arm with Blaine's and drags him towards the car. "They are still the biggest surprise."

"But in a wonderful way."

He's gazing up at Kurt lovingly, obviously only half talking about Santana and Tina. Kurt throws him a matching look and ducks into the car. The Corvette doesn't do well on the roads wet with winter rain, so Blaine drives slowly back to the Crashdown.

"Are you really okay with doing the Christmas special?" Kurt asks suddenly. "You don't seem very excited about it."

Blaine sighs, but nods. After Sam's unexpected vouching for him, he didn't have many excuses to fall back on, and Santana had looked so hopeful. He'd agreed with some reservation and hoped his assessment of how few viewers Roswell's PBS station averaged was correct.

"Backing out now will only draw more attention."

"I sort of thought we'd worked through that," Kurt says as casually as he could.

"That was before we had undercover FBI agents watching us; before we threw caution to the wind and went chasing after an alien beacon." Blaine sighs again and takes Kurt's hand across the console. "Listen. I know it's Christmas and everyone wants to bask in all the happiness and blessings in our lives, and I want to do that too. But I also have to keep us all safe, and I've really screwed that up lately."

Kurt's lips pull into a frown, and he runs his fingers through Blaine's hair, smoothing back a stray curl. "I understand that you feel obligated to set a good example for us, but I think you're too hard on yourself. We have all made mistakes, and we'll keep making them. We get through them by forgiving each other and ourselves."

Blaine doesn't answer the rest of the drive home, but he does sing along to the radio with Kurt. At the Crashdown, Kurt kisses him goodnight.

"You are helping me finish shopping for the Crashdown Christmas tomorrow, right?"

"Yes, definitely. I'll be here at seven sharp."

Kurt kisses him again and dashes inside. He waves from inside the glass doors, and it makes Blaine's stomach do a little flip. The weather is crisp and Christmas-perfect, he's performing again for the first time in years, and he has an amazing boyfriend who loves him. With a smile at nothing in particular, but everything in the world, he realizes that this is what Christmas cheer feels like.

* * *

**GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS**

Breath mists in front of Kurt and Blaine's faces as they stroll along the narrow lanes of Christmas trees that color the air with the sharpness of evergreen and the sweetness of sap. December 23rd is too late for shop for Christmas trees, but Kurt insists they need a real one for their 'bachelor chalet' or it won't ring true at all. Blaine has indulged him so far, but at seven-thirty it's barely light outside and the rain yesterday layers the roads in a thin sheet of ice. He stamps his feet and hitches his shoulders up to his ears to try and stay warm.

"Come on, Kurt. Just pick a tree."

"Just pick a tree!" Kurt cries indignantly. "No. No, a Christmas tree has to meet certain standards."

"Standards?"

"Yes. Standards. Height, circumference, color, thickness of foliage. I made a diagram."

He waves a sheet of paper at Blaine, who knows better than to contradict Kurt on something as serious as decoration. He puts his palms up in defense and trails along behind Kurt. If his eyes flick down to Kurt's fantastic ass in those indecently tight jeans every few seconds, well ….

"Oh my God!" Kurt yells.

Blaine's neck snaps up. A silent tragedy plays as if in slow motion on the street. A car turns too quickly at a green left arrow, and the tires have nothing to grip on the thin layer of ice. A little girl in a bright pink coat talks to her teddy bear, unaware of the two tons of metal swerving in her direction. But her father sees, and he knocks her out of the way.

Finally, sound returns to the world. Twin thumps of metal hitting flesh and flesh hitting pavement. And then the screams and cries of early morning shoppers and commuters on their way into work for the last time before Christmas.

Blaine hears it all, but not really. His eyes can only see the limp figure on the ground, and the crowd around him trying to find a pulse, feel breath, restart his heart. His hand flexes, because he knows he can bring the man back with a touch. But if he does, who will pay the price? Himself? Santana? Kurt? Tina? Burt? All of them?

Kurt stands next to him with his hand over his mouth. He feels Blaine shaking and glances over. Not until Kurt takes his clenching hand does Blaine realize he's still trembling, but Kurt has shaken himself out of it. He tugs gently on Blaine's arm.

"Let's go."

Blaine makes the decision to not make a decision. He walks away from the dying man on the pavement who gave his life for his daughter's. His mouth is a pale line, and his brow is drawn. Kurt can't get him to speak for a very long time.

Even then, it's only to insist – with a touch of temper Kurt hardly ever sees – that Kurt should stop worrying and go back to his day. Blaine takes the lonely, tedious task of stuffing gift bags in the corner booth. He feels Kurt's eyes stray over to him every few minutes, but he refuses to acknowledge the worried glances. Finally, close to four o'clock something besides Blaine's barely masked distress distracts Kurt.

"Dad, this is, by far, the most pathetic tree I have ever seen. Did you even refer to my diagram?"

Blaine doesn't look up from the repetitive stuffing of the party favors into their bags, but if Burt can bring the tree in through the front door of the Crashdown without assistance, it must be a pretty small tree.

"I had to run out this afternoon. There were only a few left. What happened to you two picking up the perfect tree this morning?"

Blaine glances up guiltily, but he never has the opportunity to see how pathetic the Christmas tree really is. The person across the booth stops his breath and heart and brain. Sitting opposite him is a middle aged balding man in a tan trenchcoat. The same man Blaine watched die today. The same man he didn't save.

The man opens his mouth and utters the single most chilling question Blaine has ever been asked in his life.

"How could you let me die?"

His heart starts back to life with a violent beat, air rushes out of his lungs as a stuttered breath, and the ghost vanishes in a blink.

o

Blaine stands next to Tina in the line of carolers with the brightest smile he can manage considering the depressing thoughts running through his mind. He'd promised her he would join a group of secular carolers the Cohen-Changs lead every year to spread the cheer without the excluding religious themes before he'd started seeing the ghost of a dead man everywhere he looks.

"Last house of the night," Mrs. Cohen-Chang says. "This is the family of the man who died by the Christmas tree lot on Main Street."

Blaine feels like he's going to be sick. He should have stayed at the Crashdown with Kurt and his knowing looks or subjected himself to the judgmental looks from the congregation at Sunday evening service or a thousand other painful options, because this he cannot do. On Andrea's mark, the carolers pick up their song. Blaine completely misses his entry, and with an apologetic head shake, he stumbles out of line and towards the darkness between the streetlamps.

He breathes as deeply as the cold air will allow. When he looks up, the ghost is standing in front of him. He starts backwards and shakes his head rapidly.

"What are you doing here?" the ghost demands.

"You're not here."

"No, I'm not. You know who else knows that? They do!" He points accusingly at the woman and two children standing on the stoop listening to the song. "Their father died two days before Christmas. They're acutely aware that I'm not here."

Blaine shakes his head more violently. He stammers over his words, averts his eyes, refuses to stare at proof that he could have saved a life and didn't. "There were so many people. They were all watching. If I had saved you, there are people I would have put at risk."

"Oh," the ghost says. "But it was okay for you to heal Kurt Hummel?"

"Blaine?"

The small voice behind him draws Blaine's attention to Tina. She eyes him worriedly and takes a tentative step forward.

"I'm sorry about that," he says, gesturing to the carolers. "I just … I can't … I need to go."

He doesn't realize he's walking in the direction of the Crashdown until he's halfway past his own house. Now that he knows where he's going, he picks up his pace. He hears Tina's boots clicking on the pavement behind him.

"Blaine, are you okay?"

She catches his arm and spins him around. The compassion on her face shatters his resolve. He doesn't realize he's clinging to her until she rubs his back gently. He blinks rapidly to wash away evidence of his tears.

"I need Kurt," he whispers hoarsely.

"Okay. Let's go find him."

Tina leaves Blaine on the terrace outside Kurt's bedroom window and goes downstairs to the diner in search of him. Blaine huddles up close to the kerosene heater on the terrace and rocks gently back and forth on the lounger without being conscious of his movements. Guilt and regret tear him up inside, and he doesn't know why he's here when there's no comfort for a monster like him.

Kurt emerges onto the terrace at a near run. He jumps through the window while trying to pull on a coat, but when he can't get his arm through the second sleeve he tears off the whole thing, tosses it on the ground, and runs to Blaine. He pulls his boyfriend into his arms. The metal name tag and abundance of sage green tells Blaine that Kurt is working tonight, and he tries to pull away, to let Kurt go back to his tables, but he won't let go.

"Tina told me what happened. Not everything, but enough. Blaine, I am so sorry that you ended up at that poor man's house. I know what you must be thinking."

"I could have healed him, but I didn't," Blaine admits hollowly.

Kurt sucks in a sharp breath and holds Blaine tighter. He hasn't been outside long, but he's in short sleeves and already starting to get cold. Blaine tries to pull away again, but to no avail. Kurt has him in a vice grip and won't let him go.

"You can't hold yourself responsible for that man's life, Blaine. If you would have healed him, you would have exposed yourself and Santana. I know how that sounds, but Blaine … you can't sacrifice yourself like that. You do too much good in this world."

"Why is it okay for me to heal the people I love but no one else?"

"Because that's natural. It's the way we work. We give kidneys and bone marrow to our relatives, but not to strangers. We give strangers in need our time and our money and our thoughts and prayers. We don't give them our lives."

"People do it all the time. They put on a uniform and patrol our streets or run into burning buildings or go into combat."

"Blaine, please don't do this to yourself," Kurt pleads.

"He's haunting me," Blaine said, voice broken and small. "I see him everywhere I look."

Kurt holds Blaine and rocks him gently and kisses his hair until he's calmed down some. Then he slides back into the lounger and pulls the spare blanket over them both. The afghan and the heater and Blaine's body warmth wrap around him comfortingly, but the hollow place in his chest that's been there since the car accident this morning sinks deeper into his soul, and the deeper it burrows, the more the memories float to the surface.

"I know it seems like there's no reason for the pain in this world," Kurt says quietly. "I still ask myself why it was my mom who had to die."

Blaine goes very still and very quiet against his chest. With everything going through his mind today, he probably hadn't gone to that particular dark spot in Kurt's past. He can almost feel the guilt rolling off Blaine in waves.

"It wasn't a car accident, honey," he says softly, hoping to relieve some of the undue stress Blaine puts on himself. "But I've been that kid who sees his parent die. It's tragic and shattering and the worst experience of my life."

"His kids … If I would have –"

"Ssh. Blaine, no. The only way a child can ever escape that fate is if they die before their parents, and that's an even worse possibility to consider. When I was shot and lying on the floor of the Crashdown, I didn't even care about myself. I worried about Tina watching me die, and I worried about my dad having to identify my body and come to work every day in the same place where his son died."

"But I saved you, and I could have saved him."

"I think, if my mom knew about your gift and knew what it might cost you to use it, she would have forbidden you to heal her. She was too good to want to trade someone else's child's life for her own. I think she would have much rather had you walk out to the waiting room to get me so she could say goodbye like she didn't get to then."

Blaine feels like a great block of ice in his heart has melted. He buries his face in Kurt's chest and tries not to cry – for the heroic father who died, for the fatherless children, for the terrible burden that comes with his gift, for the tragedy he hadn't known Kurt had survived – but he can't hold them back. He feels Kurt's chest stutter with falling tears too.

"I think," Kurt continues, "if the ghost were really that man and not your mind judging yourself too harshly, he would tell you his daughter is safe and that's all that matters to him. I think he would tell you you're not God. You're a seventeen-year-old boy who can do a thousand great things for this world – maybe for two worlds – if you'll forgive yourself for being human."

"But I'm not."

"You may not be _homo sapiens_, but you are most definitely human, Blaine Anderson."

* * *

**PAST, PRESENT, AND YET-TO-COME**

The ornament spins on the long branch of the artificial Christmas tree and hypnotizes Sue with the blurred flash of lights through the chipped plastic edges. For nearly five decades that ornament has graced a Christmas tree, though most years Sue saw no point in going to the trouble of decorating a tree with just herself in the house. The rainbow burst of Christmas lights transports Sue to a distant pass when the holiday hadn't held a bittersweet edge, when the two little girls in the picture encased in the ornament had made wrapping paper heaps on the living room floor and swapped favorite candies from their stockings.

Sue's mouth twitches as she dashes away the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. God, she misses her big sister. The world has never seemed as bright or beautiful since she'd died. Sue has known happiness since then, mostly in Becky's smiles and quirky humor, but nothing and no one could replace Jean.

"Mom?"

Sue snaps out of her reverie, pulls her eyes away from the spinning ornament and observes Becky, splattered with sugar cookie batter and splotches of icing on her cheeks and nose. A grin pulls at the corner of her mouth.

"Now, how did you manage that?" Sue asks, bopping Becky on the nose.

Becky shrugs. "I guess I got overly enthusiastic. I really love icing."

Sue grins genuinely, though she feels that it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Becky still looks concerned as she slides onto the couch next to Sue and smears cookie batter on one of the throw pillows.

"What's wrong, Mom? It's Christmas. You're supposed to be happy."

Sue releases a deep breath. "I know, and I am. I'm just thinking about your Aunt Jeanie and how much she loved Christmas."

Becky's mouth dips into a deep frown. She'd never gotten to meet Jean, but she'd heard stories and seen pictures of her aunt her whole life. Sue thinks they would have gotten along famously.

"Am I going to die as young as Aunt Jeanie?" Becky asks seriously.

Sue's heart lurches in her chest, and she grabs for Becky, as if to hold her close and forbid her to get sick, without realizing it. She feels unsteady, like the room is tilting side-to-side as the numbers add up in her head and she calculates a fact she never wanted to acknowledge – she could bury her daughter too.

"I don't want you worrying about that," Sue says, kissing the top of Becky's head. "Medicine is better now. Even if you do get sick, we'll make you better. Okay?"

"Okay."

Sue kisses her daughter again, lays her head on top of Becky's, and wills her pulse to slow down. Eventually, Becky stirs, signaling she's uncomfortable and Sue has to let her go.

"What was Aunt Jeanie's favorite part about Christmas?"

Sue has to think for a moment. Jean had loved so much about Christmas. She'd loved so much about life. It isn't fair that she embraced all the small gifts of life and had so few years to enjoy them.

"Well, she liked the reading of the Christmas story, singing Christmas carols, and her favorite Christmas movie was _White Christmas_ because there are two sisters in it."

"I like that movie," Becky says. "Can we watch it tonight?"

Sue's eyes stray to the swinging ornament. Ghosts of the past call to her tonight. She nods at Becky.

"Yes! I'll get the cookies."

Sue puts in the movie while Becky fixes plates of Christmas cookies and microwaves two mugs of water for the hot chocolate. The lumpy icing decoration on the cookies makes Sue's teeth ache from sweetness, and she cries during the funniest parts of the movie.

It is as perfect as Christmas can ever be without Jean.

o

"This is complete insanity," Burt says. "Why did we decide to do this?"

A harried woman with arms full of shopping bags shoves between Burt and Carole, causing Burt to lose his grip on a bag and spill designer clothes on the mall floor. He gathers them up hastily and vows to never tell Kurt his Christmas presents had been so poorly handled. He'd be appalled anyone could disrespect a Newman Marcus – or whatever – shopping bag.

"Oh, come on, Burt," Carole says, flapping her hand. "This is _fun_. I haven't been on a shopping trip to Sante Fe since before Finn was born." Burt grumbles under his breath, and she knocks him with her elbow. "I love splurging on Finn. I'll live in my acid wash for another twenty years if it means I get to see him open a new video game console or autographed football on Christmas."

That, Burt can understand. This one bag of clothes had cost Burt his average monthly – _monthly_ – salary, and all of this is just one outfit. As the cashier rang up each piece of clothing, Burt had started to grow suspicious about how Kurt had pulled together enough money to fill his closet with these clothes.

"Am I paying the waiters at the Crashdown too much?" he asks abruptly.

Carole's brow furrows at the sudden shift in conversation, but she answers. "I doubt it."

"Then are the good people of Roswell amazingly generous with their tips?"

Carole laughs. "I wouldn't count on it. Why the sudden worry?"

Burt gestures with the Neeman Markus – _whatever_ – bag. "Just wondering if Kurt still has both of his kidneys."

Carole laughs loudly and merrily. She slips her arm around his elbow and leads him in the direction of the food court where _he'd_ probably have to sell a kidney to pay for lunch.

"Oh, Burt. You really don't get enough credit for your sense of humor. All I hear is how you're such an upstanding citizen and amazing father – and you are, honey, you are stunning – but you're also a really, really wonderful partner."

Burt feels his cheeks grow hot, and he looks down at the floor hastily. Carole kisses his cheek.

"Oh my God, look at the cute old people," a preteen girl behind them coos.

Burt's sheepish grin melts into a frown, and Carole has to slap a hand over her mouth to keep her laughter in check. And they say women are touchy about their age. She guides Burt through the line and keeps his attention off the girls behind them.

"We could have bought another one-eighth of Kurt's outfit with what we paid for this."

Carole frowns over their plates of Japanese food. She knows Burt likes it, despite the fact that he'll be famished again in a few hours.

"Why are you such a Scrooge today?" she asks. Burt spears a piece of chicken with his plastic fork in a violent move that mimics his mood lately. "In fact, you've been kind of a downer about all of our Christmas plans. Do you not like the season?"

"I don't like what it reminds me of."

"Elizabeth?" she guesses.

"No, actually. I mean, I do think of her, and it'll never stop being sad. But mostly, I'm still really pissed about how Kurt and Finn reacted to us moving in together. I get why Finn is upset to be leaving his house. But Kurt …. He's not even _around_ anymore, Carole."

As soon as he says it, Burt feels the hot pinpricks behind his eyes, and he realizes that it's not the boys' reaction to him and Carole moving in together that's been bothering him. He misses Kurt. He misses Kurt so badly it hurts, and it's only going to get worse when Kurt leaves for college, because once Kurt leaves New Mexico, he'll never come back.

"This is his last Christmas at home," Burt says softly.

Carole takes his hand across the table. She doesn't try to ease his distress by telling him Kurt will always come back for Christmas, because she knows what this feels like.

"That's why we're going to make the most of it," Carole says. "Because we are, Burt. We're going to make this a Christmas none of us ever forget. Trust me. I've seen Kurt's plans for the Crashdown Christmas."

Burt laughs dryly. "All right. Well, if we want this Christmas to be truly memorable, then there's a store we need to go to on the way home."

An hour later, Carole is still laughing madly at the Santa piñata in the backseat. Burt can't wait to see Kurt's face when he hangs it up in the Crashdown.

o

Tina sits cross-legged on the sofa in Santana's apartment with her eyes closed and ears straining to hear what's going on in the next room. She hears a bump, a curse, and something heavy shaking the floor. Santana comes into the room carrying something that crinkles. Tina bounces on the cushions and claps her hands.

"Presents!"

The sofa depresses next to Tina and a soft package covered in smooth, cool wrapping paper is placed in her hands. She opens her eyes.

"Why did I have to close my eyes for that?"

"So you didn't find where I've hidden the rest of them."

"The rest? You didn't have to buy me more than one."

"I wanted to." Santana shrugs. "Christmas was never special with Helen. One year, she gave me shampoo and a dollar to go buy a soda out of the vending machine at Gas World."

Tina feels her heart breaking for the sad, lonely child Santana must have been. She reaches across the couch cushions and squeezes her girlfriend's hands.

"From now on, Christmas is something special. My family opens presents on Christmas morning, then we volunteer at the homeless shelter serving meals at noon, although this year I'm actually working at the Crashdown so Burt and Kurt can have a family lunch before going over to Carole's sister's for dinner, then we go home and have a huge feast."

"Like a scene through a frosted window in a Christmas movie," Santana says wistfully.

"Not really. Because we're out of the house all afternoon the feast isn't homemade, unless you think Marie Callendar is a real person who makes all those frozen dinners herself." Tina grins lopsidedly. "There's no such thing as the perfect Christmas outside of movies. Families are messy and cooking takes forever. Something is always burnt or underdone, or if it's not, someone is silently feuding with someone else. But those are the Christmases you remember – the ones where the sweet potatoes were hard or you had turkey for dessert because it had to cook for another five hours or a cousin threw a roll at another cousin instead of passing the basket because he got trounced in Halo a few minutes before. Those are the ones that are special."

Santana nods, tight-lipped and an ache building around her heart. "That sounds great, Tina." She sucks in a deep breath and shoves aside that ache deep in her chest. "Okay, so, presents. You can open the rest when we see each other after Christmas, but I want you to have this one for Christmas."

Tina's brow furrows. "After Christmas? You know Blaine lives a street over from me …"

Tina trails off, because Santana looks suddenly awkward, and it occurs to Tina that the Andersons probably aren't the sort of family to appreciate Blaine's friends coming over for holidays, and her assumption that Santana would spend Christmas with Blaine is dead wrong. She'll be alone on Christmas. Her heart aches.

" … _so_," she grasps for a way to redirect the sentence without causing more pain, "we don't have to meet up after Christmas to open our presents together. Blaine could slip out for a few minutes to open presents with us, and I know Burt would let Kurt come over for a little bit. And, you know, my parents bought way too many Marie Callendar's, so if you guys wanted to stay for dinner, that would be kind of perfect, because otherwise I'm going to be eating those freaking meals until June."

Santana knows what Tina is doing, and the subtly isn't necessary, but it's appreciated. She feels the stirring of tears behind her eyes. This is her future, she realizes, this group of friends held tightly together by a secret no one else can ever know. Maybe their traditions will be a little unusual, but then they are a little unusual too.

She smiles around her happy tears. "That's my idea of perfect."

* * *

**CRASHDOWN CHRISTMAS**

The bell above the Crashdown's door jingles wildly as Rachel Berry marches into the restaurant. She stops directly in front of Tina with her hands on her hips and rage smoldering in her eyes.

"Where is the Christmas Judas?"

Tina's brow furrows, and she cocks her head to the side. "Uh. Hi, Rachel?"

Rachel throws up her hand. "The only thing I want to hear is Kurt Hummel's last known location."

"Relax," Santana says from the booth. "The last I saw the Christmas Nazi he was outside wrapping lights around the flying saucer, leaving me to tie about a thousand ribbons around these gift bags. Now run along back to Santa's workshop and let us get to back to planning a party that doesn't involve a karaoke machine and a BeDazzled microphone."

Tina rolls her eyes at her girlfriend. From what she's seen, Santana hasn't tied a single ribbon herself. She loops the ribbons around the handle, waves her hand, and _ta-da_ her powers tie the bow. Rachel, however, hasn't seen that and doesn't care. She spins on her heel and double-times it back outside to search for Kurt.

"Kurt Hummel!" Rachel shouts.

The volume and rage in her voice nearly sends Kurt toppling off the ladder. Luckily, Blaine holds it steady for him and he's able to climb down without breaking a limb. With both feet on the ground, he regards Rachel with a raised brow. Blaine glances between the two uncertainly.

"I want to be in your Christmas special," Rachel says.

"Artie's the director. Talk to him."

Kurt ignores her in favor of collecting the remaining lights from the outside table he'd spread them out on. Blaine helps, still eyeing Rachel dubiously. She won't be dissuaded.

"I have, and he says there's no way to write me into the script. The only way I could be in the show is if one of the other performers dropped out, and –"

"And what? You thought you'd ask me to throw myself on the altar of Rachel Berry's Broadway dreams again? Instead of 'best friends and holiday roommates' it'll be 'holiday honeymooners'."

Blaine pulls a face and steps closer to Kurt, as if casting a vote. He wraps himself protectively around Kurt's arm, and Kurt has a difficult time fighting off the affectionate smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He reaches over and pats Blaine's gloved hands reassuringly.

"It's not happening, Rachel. I have Broadway dreams of my own. You have Vocal Adrenaline and your stunning and numerous solos to get you there. I have this, and I'm not handing it to you and appeasing your overblown sense of entitlement."

He tugs on Blaine's arm to let him know it's time to walk away from Rachel. She hurries after them.

"You are a wonderful performer, Kurt. But if we're being brutally honest, you know I have a better chance of making it on Broadway. I need this show to get into NYADA –"

"I sang _Defying Gravity_ better, and I'll sing _Let It Snow_ better," Kurt snarls.

"You missed the High F!"

"I threw that note!"

Rachel gasps. She looks like her entire world has been turned upside down with a simple sentence. Kurt flounces away with his head held high and his boyfriend trailing after him more than a little confused.

"Rematch!" Rachel screams.

"There are no rematches in war!"

Rachel's cheeks turn bright red. "I'll get you for this, Kurt Hummel!"

"And my little dog too?" Kurt shrieks back.

Blaine touches Kurt's arm gently to tell him this has gone far enough and they're drawing a crowd. Kurt's jaw snaps shut, and he storms into the Crashdown.

o

Emotions run high as the cast of the Roswell Christmas Spectacular stumble out of the PBS studio still in their elegant 1950's costumes laughing and congratulating each other on a well-performed show. Kurt and Blaine walk with their arms around each other, Santana rides on Artie's wheelchair and waves like she's the Queen while Finn pushes, Sam carries her heels, and Mike has Tina piggy-backed. They've crossed into ridiculously giddy, but they can't find their decorum with the high of performing still rushing through their veins.

"To the after party!" Santana commands.

Whoops and cheers meet the order, and Finn takes off down the sidewalk at a run. Artie throws his arms in the air like he's on a rollercoaster. Three blocks ahead, the lights around the flying saucer over the Crashdown and the flashing Christmas lights in the window call them to the festive party about to begin.

"Snow!" Kurt cries joyfully.

He stops running and looks up at the darkening sky. Infrequent, tiny snowflakes land on his face, and each spot of moisture melting against his skin makes him so happy Blaine doesn't hesitate to point at the sky and manipulate the molecules. The large flakes fall faster and leave a dusting of white powder over their shoulders and hair.

Kurt squeezes his eyes shut and sticks out his tongue. Surprise parts Blaine's lips, and a laugh bubbles up from his throat. He catches Kurt around the waist and presses a kiss to his cheek. Kurt stumbles with the unexpected embrace, but steadies himself. His eyes blink open in surprise, and he flashes his boyfriend a toothy grin.

"I love you," Blaine says. "I love seeing you happy."

Blaine laughs merrily and grabs Kurt's hand. He runs after their friends ducking inside the Crashdown. When they arrive at the party, Burt sweeps Kurt into a hug and says gruffly, "I'm so proud of you, kid."

"Dad," he laughs. "You haven't even seen the show yet."

"Doesn't matter. I know it'll be fantastic with you in it."

While Kurt had been in rehearsals all afternoon, Carole had taken control of the party decorations. The tinsel, garland, mistletoe, wreaths, and baubles hanging in the Crashdown since early December are accompanied by miniature Christmas trees on every table, and the tables and booths have been rearranged to allow for the dessert buffet line. Kurt doesn't notice the Santa piñata in the corner, but Burt is waiting for the moment he does. In about forty minutes their guests will begin arriving for the annual party, and this year, to watch the Christmas special when it airs.

"Dinner is on the house for our celebrities," Burt proclaims.

Another collective whoop comes from the line of tables pushed together at the back of the diner where all the teenagers can sit together. Kurt shakes his head incredulously at Blaine and says, "What are you ...? You eat here every day." Blaine keeps cheering anyway.

They get comfortable at their table. Tina stretches out her legs and rests her feet in her girlfriend's lap. Kurt rests his head on Blaine's shoulder. Further down the table, Finn, Sam, Mike, and Artie make plans to get together after the party and watch the Christmas Eve football game they'd had to DVR because of their afternoon rehearsal schedule.

"I can't believe half of our senior year is over," Tina says.

"I can't believe everything we've been through has happened in half a year," Kurt counters.

"Less than half a year," Blaine corrects.

"It makes me wonder where we'll be next year," Tina finishes her thought. "I mean, I know we'll be here with our families for Christmas, but where will we _be_? It's like a waiting game until we get our college acceptance letters. And even then we'll still have auditions and interviews. I hope I'll be at Julliard, but I don't know."

"Rachel Berry is not getting my NYADA spot," Kurt says viciously.

"I'll be living the dream," Santana says. "I'll be in some fantastic college town or metropolis bringing in a fortune with my hustling, buying up all the pretty things in department store windows, and living in the lap of luxury."

They laugh appreciatively, although they know Santana isn't really joking. If she had more than one pool hall to hustle in Roswell, she'd been the richest kid at West Roswell High.

Gradually, their attention turns to Blaine, who has never had a solid plan for after high school, but halfway through their senior year, that seems shocking and irresponsible of their valedictorian. Blaine passes his friends a wan smile.

"I have a healing gift," he says. Kurt shifts around uncomfortably, and Santana's brow knits, but Blaine holds up his hands for them to wait before they judge. "I know I can't use it to save everyone. Or even very many people. But I do have that ability, and not healing people feels intensely wrong. I can't use my powers, but that doesn't mean I can't save people. So, next year, I'll be pre-med."

Surprised smiles break out around the table.

"Blaine, that's perfect for you," Tina says.

"Great. I'll be supporting a med student for the next decade," Santana grouses, but she says it with a smile and nudges Blaine's leg with her toe.

Blaine tempers his smile and looks to Kurt for his reaction. He knows Kurt thinks he's meant to perform, but now that he's considered medicine as a possibility, it feels so _right_. He can see it so clearly in his head: a future where he can embrace his healing nature.

"I guess you'd better stop boxing, then," Kurt says lightly. "We can't risk you messing up those surgeon's hands."

A brilliant smile breaks out across Blaine's face.

Burt and Carole come out of the kitchen with two trays laden with cheeseburgers, French fries, and milkshakes. Blaine gets another side eye from Kurt because he ordered the Alien Encounter Salad. For a few minutes, they tuck into their meals. They hadn't realized how hungry they were after all that singing and dancing.

Later, after the dishes are cleared away and the party guests arrive, they mingle with family friends and business associates while sampling the dessert buffet, and then they curl up in booths to watch the Christmas special air at eight o'clock. With the light snow falling outside, the warmth and company inside, Blaine thinks this Christmas turned out all right after all. Maybe the little green alien in the corner wearing a wreath isn't so traditional, but then, nothing in Roswell is normal, so he accepts the oddities as part of life, kisses his boyfriend, and says:

"Merry Christmas."


	9. With the Devil On Your Back

**Author's Note: **Hello, everyone. I have just a couple notices to tell you about before you start this chapter.

Firstly, I've added "character deaths" to the warnings for this story, because several people do die, and some of them are beloved characters. Blaine may or may not be able to bring them back. I felt I should warn you about that.

Secondly, I want to remind you that I update this story once a month. A couple reviewers have found that unacceptable, but that has been the schedule from the beginning, and I have no intention of changing that. My betas and I need time to edit these chapters before I post.

And now, I hope you enjoy …

* * *

**ROSWELL**

**PART NINE**

**WITH THE DEVIL ON YOUR BACK**

_ January 17_

_I hate the start of a cold, that little tickle that tells you something you hate is about to happen. It could be mild if you do everything right. Or it could knock you off your feet if you're not careful._

* * *

**ALIEN HUNTER**

Deputy Ryerson is waiting for Sue when she climbs out of her Le Car on Thursday morning. He has a cup of coffee for her that she refuses. They have horrible blend at the precinct. She sips at her Americano instead, and for a second he looks hopeful that another Starbuck's mug will appear, but gets down to business when he lets go of that pipedream.

"Fourteen calls this week about the sighting," he says, handing off a stack of paperwork.

"What? That was months ago!"

"Another blog picked it up."

Sue huffs like a winded rhinoceros. She hates bloggers more than she hates the urban campers who sometimes try to turn the city's park benches into overcrowded, stinking hostels until she screams at them through her bullhorn and threatens to borrow a fire hose from the stationhouse down the street.

"Dry lightning, Deputy," she says. "That's the official response. I don't have time to explain that to them, which is why it's your job."

Sue leaves Ryerson at the front desk to ward off the masses of whining townspeople who think it's her job to scold neighbors for walking too loudly and stop ferocious dogs from barking at them as they walk down the street. She heads for the peace and quiet of her office where solid bars over the windows overlooking the alley and Venetian blinds in the door keep out interlopers.

Unfortunately, one such interloper has already been admitted today. When Sue steps inside her sanctuary, a tall, dark figure spins around in her chair and stands up to greet her. Sue's lips press into a thin line as Roz Washington ambles around the desk. They have a momentary battle of wills as they correct their posture, both attempting to stand taller than the other, but in the end, they're exactly the same height. Roz hasn't changed much since Sue last saw her. She's bleached her hair, but she still wears gaudy hoop earrings and tracksuits, which aren't nearly as nice or flattering as Sue's own wardrobe.

"Been awhile, Sue." Roz's southwestern twang punctuates her words and draws them out for too long. She flicks a bright pink claw at the framed photographs on Sue's desk. "I see your old ass got yourself a daughter. I'm a spinster myself. No kids to speak of. Nothing to tie me down and keep me from winning the gold medal."

"You're still on the hunt for that Holy Grail?"

Roz only lifts an eyebrow, but it's enough to ruffle all of Sue's feathers. She marches around her desk to regain the feeling of authority that the unexpected arrival of her old nemesis robbed from her.

"You're not welcome here."

"I expected more from you than dumbass, small town threats. See you around, Sue."

Roz ambles out of the office, but with a twist to her mouth and dark gleam in her eye that tells Sue she'll be back before too long. She wants something from her rival, and she won't leave Roswell until she gets it. Sue has a sinking feeling that they're on the same trail.

"Who was that?" Ryerson asks too loudly and casually for the atmosphere. He comes bearing another stack of paperwork.

"That, Deputy, was a bona fide alien hunter."

ooo

At the top of the fourth landing, Kurt's legs completely give out. His thighs wobble like jelly, and the stretch in his calf burns painfully. He barely manages to release the cardboard box onto a stack just inside the door before his knees give way and he can catch himself before he does an embarrassing tumble backwards.

"Be careful with that!" Finn scolds. "That's fragile."

Kurt inspects the label on the box. It definitely says 'baseball cards.' He tries not to roll his eyes or wheeze too loudly. Four flights of stairs is a lot when carrying a box that might have been full of cinderblocks for all that it weighs. This is the seventeenth trip Kurt has made in an hour. He's sweaty and gross and completely out of breath.

"You have a lot of shit," he comments irritably.

Finn stares at him blankly.

As the Hudson-Hummels had agreed, Carole and Finn made plans to move in to the apartment above the Crashdown after Christmas. A few minor post-holiday inevitabilities like removing Christmas decorations and New Year's and out-of-town relatives lingering had delayed the actual move date, but that had given Burt more time to clean out his fourth floor office, which he never used anyway, and convert it into a bedroom for Finn. It's a smallish room with a window overlooking Kurt's terrace. They'll have to share a bathroom, which Kurt is dreading. He's avoided the jock plus showers combination for three-and-a-half years, and he'd rather not have Finn anywhere near his immaculate bathroom, but there's no other solution than to share.

"I think this is the last of it," Burt says.

He carries in a box that looks light – probably pillows or comforter – but he's red-cheeked and breathing hard anyway. Kurt starts to fuss at the same moment Carole does, and he's not sure how he feels about giving up fussing rights to her just yet. Finn turns his back on the cutesy display and starts making his bed, if tossing pillows with lopsided cases randomly towards the headboard can even be considered making a bed.

"Actually, this is the last one," Blaine amends.

Kurt narrows his eyes at his boyfriend. He doesn't show any signs of exertion despite making just as many trips up the stairs as Kurt, and he's even more chipper than he usually is. It's a little disturbing that anyone can have ratcheting up the charm as a defense mechanism. He's really not even sure why Blaine is here when he could have easily avoided another move. After all, they've only just got Santana settled. He insisted on coming around to help, though.

"Do you want us to help you unpack, sweetie?" Carole asks.

Finn's eyes widened and slide sideways to the cardboard boxes. Kurt guesses that means that in addition to baseball cards the size of paving stones, there are also alarming quantities of porn hidden somewhere in the boxes.

"We can help Finn," Blaine offers. He ignores the stern reprimand in Kurt's glare.

"We'll get started downstairs then," Carole says.

The adults file out to go unpack the boxes of personal and some household items that supplement what Burt already has. Kurt dreads most of all seeing Carole's ancient wardrobe come out of the boxes he had attempted to misplace in the storage unit, but they'd somehow arrived in the U-Haul despite his best efforts. He needs to take her shopping very soon.

"Thanks, dude," Finn says. He claps Blaine on the back and grabs the box cutter.

As Finn slices through the packing tape and lifts the flaps up, Blaine and Kurt do what they can to help him arrange his things. His room in his mom's house was much larger than the converted office, and not all of his belongings will fit comfortably in the new, tighter space. He's most distressed by the sharp angle he'll have to sit at on his bed to play his video games.

"This sucks," he grumbles under his breath. "Why couldn't they just wait until we move out after graduation again?"

Kurt shrugs. Although he silently agrees with Finn, he's been over this argument enough in his head and made his friends listen to it three times each. He's not happy about the new arrangement, but he's vented about it enough to make peace with his dad's decision.

"Maybe if we move the bookcase over there?" Blaine suggests.

They spend the next twenty minutes trying different combinations of Finn's furniture until, eventually, they decide to put the bookcase in the short corridor between Kurt's room and bathroom on the third floor since Finn doesn't have books anyway.

"Sorry to, like, complain and stuff. I don't like moving out of my house though, you know?"

"I do, Finn," Kurt says. "It's not fair in a lot of ways. You should let it out if you need to talk. I've had plenty of opportunities to do just that."

Blaine throws him a sympathetic look and rubs his back gently. Kurt catches something in Finn's countenance – a twist to his lips and distance in his eye – that he doesn't like. This – _this_ – is what Kurt feared the most. It's not safe for him and Blaine to show affection in public, and now even their privacy carries a taint. He could back down, just like he has to in public, but this is _his_ house; Finn is moving in to _Kurt's_ domain, and there are some things he'll just have to get used to.

He brushes a thumb along Blaine's cheekbone and flashes an affectionate smile his way. Blaine leans into the touch and blinks slowly at him, his eyes shining with stars. Finn turns away sometime during the display. He's not like Karofsky and Azimio, but he's not Sam, Artie, and Mike either. A well of disappointment and anger builds in Kurt's chest. He leaves Finn to unpack the rest of his boxes by himself. Somewhere on the staircase, disappointment and anger turn into defiance.

"My shift starts in an hour," he tells Blaine.

"Okay. I'll go so you can take a shower."

But Blaine doesn't get to head for the stairs. Kurt has him pinned against the wall between the newly added bookcase and bathroom door. He makes a strangled, surprised sound and kisses back eagerly. It's not every day Kurt slots their bodies together, holds his face, and licks into his mouth. He grips at Kurt's hips and slides his hands up and under the loose t-shirt he wore to move. He swallows Kurt's happy hums.

"Oh. Uh. I'll use the bathroom later."

Kurt glances over his shoulder at Finn and lifts an eyebrow. "We're not blocking the door, are we?"

Finn pulls a face like he's been caught in the act of something terrible, which he has. Blaine gently maneuvers himself out from between Kurt and the wall and tugs his boyfriend into his bedroom. Kurt follows reluctantly.

"Don't you think that was a little immature?" Blaine asks.

Kurt lifts his chin into the air and refuses to answer.

"He's come a long way since Halloween," Blaine says reasonably. "He still has a ways to go yet, but purposefully making him uncomfortable isn't going to help."

Kurt knows there's some wisdom in the advice, but he doesn't want to accept it. He doesn't want to have to walk on eggshells in his own house the way that Blaine has to around his mom. The Hummel household is supposed to be their sanctuary.

Kurt sniffs. "I'm not changing any of my behaviors just because we have a guest with homophobic tendencies."

"I would never ask you to," Blaine promises. "But we both know you've never done _that_ in the hallway before. And we both also know that Finn isn't a 'guest'."

Kurt scowls. He collapses face first into his pillows and lets out a muffled cry along with the garbled words, "This is so not fair." Blaine strokes his back lightly and presses a kiss into his hair.

"Nothing ever is for us. But we have each other."

Kurt rolls over and gazes at his boyfriend upside down. "And that makes everything okay?"

"No. But it makes everything a little more bearable. It makes me happier."

"Me too."

Blaine bends over double and kisses Kurt upside down.

Out in the hallway, Finn pauses in front of the open door. He averts his eyes quickly and shuffles up the stairs. He paces around his new room for a few minutes and tries not to feel weird about seeing two guys kiss. He knows he shouldn't feel this way, but he does, and he doesn't know how to make it stop. He throws himself onto his bed and lets out a muffled scream into his pillow along with the words, "This is so not fair."

ooo

Sue has a nasty surprise waiting for her when she walks out of the Crashdown on Friday night. Roz leans against the Le Car with her arms crossed over her chest and stares into the middle distance. She pushes off the hood and turns to Sue with a superior smirk. Sue glances down at her daughter. Becky skips along beside her sucking on her Blood of Alien smoothie so hard the straw collapses in on itself. The girl doesn't notice Roz, and that's for the best.

"Here's a dollar," Sue says, thrusting the bill at her daughter. "Go shoot some aliens in the arcade."

"A dollar isn't going to win the Alien Takedown tournament, Mom."

Sue casts a frown in her direction, but fishes a ten out of her wallet. Anything to keep Becky far from Roz. They've just overcome the chasm between them caused by alien hunting. She doesn't want Becky hearing anything Roz has to say.

After her daughter is gone, Sue stares defiantly at Roz, as if daring her to say one word about Becky or Down's Syndrome. To her surprise, Roz stares after the girl with the softest expression the alien hunter has ever worn. She looks almost wistful.

"Why'd you come back, Roz?"

The harsh question shakes Roz out of her funk. She snaps back into her normal, simmering angry countenance.

"I've been tracking what's going on around here for the last few months. The shooting at the Crashdown? What happened there?"

"Get the hell out of here," Sue growls.

"I thought we talked about small town threats?"

"I'm not talking to you as the Sheriff." Sue comes a little closer. She doesn't want pedestrians overhearing this conversation. "I'm talking as Sue Sylvester. After everything you've cost me, I don't want to see you again. I had proof. Incontrovertible proof and you stole it from me."

Smugness lifts the corner of Roz's mouth. She edges in closer to, speaking more quietly than usual. There's something compelling in her slow drawl and confidential whisper. If she's the snake charmer, Sue is the cobra. Either one could destroy the other, but they're drawn in and mesmerized nonetheless.

"I'm sure you're upset. But consider this. I'm the only person in the world who knows the answers to the questions you have. Before you kick me out of town, you should think of that. We could help each other. Tell me what you know, Sue Sylvester. Tell me about Blaine Anderson."

* * *

**VOCAL ADRENALINE**

A strong winter wind blowing in from the west makes West Roswell High's outside corridors a nightmare and opening the heavy metal doors a challenge. Huddled down into their coats with heads ducked against the frigid wind, Tina and Santana struggle to slip inside the student commons where the warmth is a welcome reprieve after their long sprint from the locker rooms in the gymnasium.

"I know what would warm us up," Santana says with a flirty wink as she links their pinkies together.

Tina gives her a scandalized gasp, but then giggles. "I'll come over after my shift."

Blaine and Kurt sit at their table already with lunch trays. Predictably, Blaine has a salad smothered in dressing. Kurt gives up recounting the many reasons his chicken sandwich is a better option when the girls plop down on the bench beside them.

"How can you eat hamburgers and fries?" Kurt asks Tina skeptically. "We spend enough time around fryers and grills."

Tina shrugs and takes a massive bite of her cheeseburger. Kurt shudders.

"He's extra sensitive about food today because he watched Finn eat a sandwich with three fried eggs, six bacon strips, and about half a cup of mayonnaise this morning," Blaine explains.

"So living with the star quarterback isn't working out so well?" Tina asks. She pats his hand consolingly when he shakes his head.

"You know what's not working out so well for Jesse St. James?" Santana eyes gleam with dark glee. She nods her head in the direction of the cafeteria door. "Walking."

The boys turn and Tina cranes to see. Jesse comes into the cafeteria bright-cheeked and with ruffled hair from the biting wind, but it's the crutches under his arms and air cast around his knee that catches their attention. Vocal Adrenaline's star is out of commission and Regionals is this Saturday. Kurt shifts around curiously. Restless energy keeps him searching for something. He finally finds it. Rachel marches over to Jesse, equal parts concerned and stressed. From the way her mouth moves constantly and the sharp, cutting hand gestures that punctuate every sentence, she's seriously freaking out that she's lost her duet and dance partner.

"Well, maybe if Ms. Corcoran hadn't neglected all her other talent, Vocal Adrenaline might still stand a chance at Regionals. This is what she gets."

"Is it now?"

The familiar voice of his former glee club teacher behind him causes Kurt to freeze. Ms. Corcoran comes around to the side of their table. Even with the din of voices in the cafeteria, the clicking of her heels echoes. She peers down at Kurt seriously.

"Unfortunately, I can see that you're right," she admits. "Jesse can't step up the risers much less do _Bohemian Rhapsody_ right now, and Rachel doesn't know how to work with any of the other guys in glee club."

"Yes, I imagine finding someone as narcissistic as those two would be a challenge," Kurt comments breezily.

Ms. Corcoran ignores the comment. "That's why I'm recruiting new talent who can learn a routine in four and a half days. I hear you did that for your Christmas special, and you were fantastic."

It takes a moment for them to understand that they're being recruited to join Vocal Adrenaline. Kurt and Tina's faces darken.

"No."

The teacher looks pleadingly between Tina and Kurt. "I know we parted on bad terms, but I never thought the two of you were any less talented than Rachel and Jesse. Glee club needed star power, and you have to admit that when Rachel and Jesse pushed for it, you faded into the background without much fight."

"Because we're team players," Tina says. "But even team players have their limits."

"I'll join," Santana pipes up. "If I'm featured. I like the spotlight, and I'm not giving it up to harmonize in the background while the Shrew of Padua stomps her clown feet and does jazz fingers with her freakishly large man hands."

Ms. Corcoran regards Santana's stern fierceness for a beat. "Our set list is already decided. I need someone who can slot into Jesse's place. What do you say, Blaine? Do you want to be the star of Vocal Adrenaline?"

Blaine knows the wide-eyed, slack-jawed look is clichéd and unbecoming, but he doesn't know how else to respond because he never expected to be singled out when Kurt and Tina have been in glee club before. His mouth forms a "Well …" that gets caught on the first syllable. His eyes slide sideways to Kurt. His boyfriend sits stiffly, eyes forward, mouth thin, and nostrils flared. He opens his mouth to decline the offer, but Kurt turns to him suddenly, eyes full of hurt, but he nods slightly. It confuses the issue even more.

After high school, Blaine's going to become a doctor. Why does he need glee club solos? He understands he's being given a gift that Kurt finds valuable, but to Blaine it's an empty prospect.

"Thank you, Ms. Corcoran. That's a very flattering offer, but I can't learn all of Jesse's parts that quickly. I've seen Vocal Adrenaline performances, and they're more complicated than anything I've ever done. I'd be happy to have a solo, but I think the rest should be spread around. As you said, our Christmas special was great, and that's because we worked as a team and no one hogged the spotlight."

Ms. Corcoran isn't thrilled by the answer, but she has to take what she can get. She walks away from the table with four new members of Vocal Adrenaline, last minute rearrangements to make to the set list, and one Rachel Berry to inform that she'll only have one solo this competition.

"Do you think she'll keep her word?" Tina wonders. "Do you really think we'll all have solos?"

Kurt shrugs. "If she doesn't, at least we only promised to perform at Regionals. We can send in another update to our CVs – a first place win, hopefully – and be done with Vocal Adrenaline for good."

"When will you hear from NYADA?" Blaine asks.

"The letters come out next month, and if we get an audition, those are in March. They'll make a decision in April. So either way, we won't need Vocal Adrenaline for very much longer."

"I'm already not feeling this stupid glee club," Santana grumbles. She spears a French fry with more force than is strictly necessary. "Where does she get off brushing aside my diva demands? I'm every bit as talented as Rachel Berry."

"You are," Tina says. "I'm sure you'll have a solo. And so will you, Blaine, obviously. The only question is whether she thinks enough of Kurt and me this time around to actually let us sing."

"I guess we'll find out at practice tonight."

That night, no one is surprised to find out that Blaine and Rachel are featured on their closing number, _Paradise by the Dashboard Light_. Santana has an entire song to herself – _Valerie_ – and so does Rachel with their opening, _Defying Gravity_. That, in particular, raises Kurt's hackles. Although, he is pleased that Ms. Corcoran isn't entirely happy with Rachel's rendition of the song.

"So," Tina says. "We were used so Ms. Corcoran could sink her claws into our significant others."

Kurt sighs deeply and slumps against the painted cinderblock wall of the choir room where they watch Blaine spin Rachel around the first riser.

"I'm not as angry about it as I thought I'd be."

"Me either."

"They have five months to do this, and then they'll never get to perform in front of an audience as large as a Regionals performance ever again." He smiles ruefully. "I am a little bitter that the same thing will probably happen to us since we don't have solos to put on our CVs."

"What's your backup plan?"

"Journalism. Yours?"

"A cardboard box and a park bench."

A smile flickers on Kurt's lips, and then he's laughing. "Oh my God, Tina." He wipes at the corner of his eyes where tears leak out. "We don't have a shot of even getting auditions, do we?"

She shakes her head. She feels oddly at peace knowing this, and Kurt relaxes against her, as if a great weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

"I don't think I could have really pursued that path anyway," she says. "The things we've seen, the things we know …. Broadway is too small for me now."

Kurt nods slowly. "So I should be on the lookout for deluxe cardboard boxes?"

She grins. "I think astrophysicists can usually afford something better."

"Astronomy?"

"There's so much out there, Kurt, and I know what to look for, so I have to try and find it."

He nods. "Same. Except it's secrets I want to uncover."

They sit quietly for a few moments and watch Blaine master the footing to the dance routine while singing the chorus with Rachel. When Ms. Corcoran calls for the whole glee club to take it from the top, Kurt and Tina take their places in the back.

"I would kill for one last solo," Kurt says wistfully.

Tina nods slowly. "If this is our last performance, I'd rather go out with a melody."

ooo

Sue has the distinct feeling that she's going to regret this very much, but the possibility of finding out the truth is too great. Having Roz Washington in her living room turns Sue's stomach. They're on the same trail, though, and there's no denying it. Sue suspects Blaine Anderson; Roz suspects Blaine Anderson. They might not get along, but when their hunches agree, they're always onto something big.

Roz pulls out a file folder and begins spreading photographs over the coffee table. They're all the same: a dead body with a white handprint on them. Sue knows that symbol intimately.

"This alien has been on a rampage through the southwest for the last forty years, leaving a trail of bodies behind him. That white handprint, it fades in a few days so I've always got my camera app ready."

"Where'd you get these?"

Sue picks up a photograph of a young Black man lying on the ground in front of a car. His face is turned away from the camera, but from the angle of his limbs and the glowing mark on his chest, Sue knows he's dead.

"That one I took myself. The others I procured."

"You mean you stole. Who's the guy?"

"Doesn't matter. What matters is that this alien is a killer. I'm gonna bring it down, and you're gonna help me."

Sue shuffles around the photographs. She takes a moment to observe each one and notes the similarities and differences among them. All the victims have been killed in the same manner, and the size of the handprint looks consistent. Her police instincts kick in. She needs to find more connections – or the lack thereof – before she's confident that it's just one alien doing all of this. Because, if it is, they have a serial killer on their hands.

"Who are the victims?"

"People," Roz snaps. She sounds on the edge of her patience. "People with bad luck in the wrong place at the wrong time. But you already know that. I can see it in your eyes this ain't the first time you've seen this white handprint. This alien is a monster, and if you know something, it's our duty to team up and do something about it. Now what do you know about this Blaine Anderson kid?"

Sue hesitates. For all she suspects Blaine Anderson, he's just a kid. Her eyes sweep over the dozen dead bodies on her coffee table.

Unless he isn't.

ooo

"Guys, I'm so sorry," Blaine says sorrowfully. "It's my fault that we're all stuck in Vocal Adrenaline, and you don't have solos. I was so stupid to trust Ms. Corcoran like that."

Kurt takes his hand under the table and twines their fingers together. "No, Blaine. We knew it would probably work out this way, but we agreed anyway."

"I should talk to her," Blaine offers.

"You don't have to," Tina says. "She would still say no, and then it would be all that hurt and angst that happened last time we were in glee club all over again. We only have to harmonize and sway for a few days."

She doesn't go into detail about the conversation she and Kurt had about allowing Blaine and Santana this one moment to shine. Their meals arrive, brought out of the Crashdown's kitchen by Burt. After the longest rehearsal in the history of rehearsals – or so they'd thought until Ms. Corcoran dropped the phrase "midnight tomorrow" at the end – no one felt like cooking, so they crashed into a booth and let others do it for them.

"I just … I feel so awful."

Kurt pulls a pouty face at his boyfriend. "You're adorable when you worry, but stop it. I'm sad for myself, but I'm so proud of you. I want you to kill your solo and bring the audience to its feet just like I know you can."

"You too, missy," Tina says, nudging Santana with her foot. "No holding back because you feel guilty."

Santana shakes her head so that her ponytail bobs behind her shoulders. "If you think I'll hold back over something as trivial as guilt, you obviously don't know me very well."

But she gives Tina a look that says she's as upset as Blaine, even if she won't vocalize it quite the same way. Tina squeezes her hand.

The bell above the door jingles. It's pretty late at night for new customers, and even though he's not working, Kurt looks up instinctively to say that the grill closes in fifteen minutes. He's shocked into silence by who he sees, however. Sheriff Sylvester comes into the diner followed by a woman who could be her twin except for their difference in age and race.

"Not possible," Santana declares. "This universe and the one where we're exactly the same, except we're different races, aren't allowed to collide like this."

The Sheriff and her friend take a seat at the table across from the teenagers' booth. The rest of the booths and tables in the restaurant are open, and it makes the teenagers uneasy that they chose to sit so close.

"Hey there, kids," the Sheriff says casually, as if there isn't any weighty history between them. "Fine night for a milkshake."

Santana's brow furrows. It's freezing outside.

"I'd like to introduce you to a visitor in town for a while. She's Roswell famous. That's like being Twitter famous, but without the followers and ability to overshare intensely personal thoughts in 140 characters. This is Roz Washington. She's one of the few people rumored to have made direct contact with an alien."

The teenagers go silent and still.

"And these are some of Roswell's fine, upstanding young people," Sheriff Sylvester says with an ironic twist in her voice. "Kurt Hummel and Tina Cohen-Chang, who work in this very classy establishment. Santana Lopez, a songstress at a local place called Breadstix, which is owned by people who can't spell. And this young man is Blaine Anderson."

The lack of additional information about Blaine sends a chill between the tables. It feels more significant that he's been singled out in this way. Roz leans forward curiously, but says nothing. She peers at Blaine with dark, cold eyes that unsettle him.

"Direct contact, huh?" he asks, nervously. "So what did this alien look like?"

"A little like you." Blaine's smile drops, and Roz sits back in her chair. She adds casually, as if she'd always intended to, "Or me. They're not little green men."

Burt comes out of the kitchen to take the women's orders, but their lack of attention on him doesn't make Blaine feel any better. He has trouble swallowing, and despite the hours of dancing, he's not hungry at all. His tension is mirrored on the faces of his friends.

Maybe midnight rehearsals for a few days isn't such a bad idea.

* * *

**REGIONALS**

The rest of the week flies by in a blur of singing, dancing, and jazz hands. Ms. Corcoran is a taskmaster. No one is safe from her barrage of insults when a number goes sideways. When she demands "a look so optimistic it could cure cancer" only Jesse, in the audience with his knee propped up on pillows, manages it.

"I don't think I've ever been this sore in my life," Blaine complains.

He sits down gingerly on the second riser and stretches out his tired legs. Beside him, Tina slides off her shoes and massages her feet. She casts him a judgmental look, and he knows it's because she's been dancing in heels for the last seven hours and doesn't even have a solo to show for her pains.

"Sorry."

The clock at the back of the auditorium says it's nearing midnight. They leave for Regionals in less than six hours, but Ms. Corcoran shouts for them to take their places again.

"This is our last shot to get it right," she says. "Vocal Adrenaline has never pulled a routine together this quickly, and I'm really proud of all of you. But the judges don't care that we did this in four days. Let's step it up, guys. I know it's late. I know you're tried. But let's make this one perfect so we can all go get some sleep before we leave tomorrow – _today_."

The competition at Regionals isn't the worst Vocal Adrenaline has ever seen, but it's not the easiest either. They're up against Aural Intensity from Bitter Lake, where the competition is being held, and the Warblers from Dalton Academy, and according to Wes, they're fantastic this year thanks to a new transfer student. A couple mistakes really could mean a second-place trophy or worse.

They run through the performance again – _Defying Gravity_, _Valerie_, and _Paradise by the Dashboard Light_ – and desperately hope that Ms. Corcoran is satisfied this time. Finally, at five after midnight, she releases them with strict instructions to be in the school parking lot no later than 5:45am for the bus ride to Bitter Lake. They're first up at Regionals, which means a 9:30am show and not much time for warm-ups and getting into costume before.

The glee club promises to be there bright and early – or just early, since the sun won't be out at 5:45am in the winter – and scurries away before she can change her mind. They all keep their promise to be on time.

All except one.

ooo

Sue wakes up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night. In her dream, she'd been having tea in mugs shaped like alien heads with her sister. Something she'd said startled her awake, and Sue scrambles out of bed and into the dining room where she left a box of files no longer safe at the precinct with the FBI snooping around. She rifles through the photographs until she finds the one she's looking for.

Roz gave her this one just a few days ago. It's the one of the Black man facing away from the camera. Something about the picture had bothered her from the first time she saw it, but only tonight does she realize what. There it is, hidden in the upper right hand corner of the picture: a New Mexico license plate.

Sue boots up her computer. While she waits for the fans to whir to life and the Windows theme to play too loudly in the silent house, she gets ready for what will be a very long day now. Track suit on, badge clipped to her chest, gun out of the safe, coffee brewing in the kitchen. The computer is still working when she sits down again, and she makes a note to yell at the mayor to upgrade the laptops given to city officials.

While she waits, she taps her finger against the partial plate in the picture. Finding out who the victims are has always been her first instinct. So how had she missed this clue?

Ambition. Passion. Obsession.

When the computer stops protesting the startup, Sue brings up the program she needs to do a license plate search. She keys in her badge number and password, and then types in the partial plate from the photograph. It takes the program a minute to return a result. When it does, Sue is up out of her chair and heading for the door in a blink of the eye.

The computer screen illuminates the still dark house with the damning evidence. The vehicle in the photograph was registered to Roz Washington ten years ago. And now that the pieces have fallen into place, she knows why the dead man in the photograph bothers her so much. She's seen him before. Just once eleven years ago in a wedding announcement sent from her then very dear friend Roz.

Words – words and their implications – echo in Sue's head as she speeds down the highway with her lights flashing.

"_Tell me what you know, Sue Sylvester. Tell me about Blaine Anderson."_

ooo

"Where the hell is Blaine?" Rachel shrieks. "I need my duet partner!"

The question has been asked roughly fifty-seven times in the past hour, and Kurt still doesn't have an answer. Kurt, Santana, and Tina texted and called the entire forty-five minute bus ride to Bitter Lake High School and while Ms. Corcoran got them checked in.

"This isn't like him at all," Santana worries. "What if something happened?"

"Like what?" Tina wants to know.

"Like maybe the alien hunter hanging around Roswell got him," she whispers back.

Kurt scrambles for his phone and hits the call button again, but there's still no answer. He shoves his thumb into his mouth and gnaws on his nail while his foot taps at a lightning pace. Santana paces back and forth in front of the mirror in their dressing room.

"Vocal warm-ups," Ms. Corcoran orders. "If Blaine isn't here in the next twenty minutes, we'll have to rearrange our closing number."

Kurt stomach is in knots, and Rachel running around the green room screaming about her duet being ruined only puts him more on edge. While she's freaking out over a duet, Kurt fears for his boyfriend's _life_.

"Shut up! Shut up! _Shut up!_" he bellows at Rachel. "God, not everything is about you, Rachel! What if Blaine got into a car accident on the way to school? Is your stupid duet really more important than that?"

Rachel looks so close to saying yes that Kurt wants to slap her. Instead, she grabs Kurt's wrist and hauls him out into the corridor. They squeeze against the wall so that other show choirs in sparkling sequined costumes can file past. She leans in close and hiss-whispers at Kurt.

"Look, Kurt. I really, really hope that Blaine just overslept, but what if he can't make it here in time to warm up and change into costume? We need a backup plan. There are no other guys in Vocal Adrenaline who can sing _Paradise by the Dashboard Light_ except for Jesse and Blaine. You have a stunning voice, Kurt, but can you honestly tell me you'd be able to sing that song well enough to get us a first place trophy?"

Kurt hates to admit – especially to Rachel Berry – that he can't do something, but she's right. They are, as she's realized, totally screwed. He casts his mind around frantically. He has no answer until he remembers one tiny detail mentioned in passing just before he fell into bed last night – there _is_ someone in the audience who can pull off that song.

"I can't sing _Paradise_, but I can sing _Defying Gravity_."

Rachel huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. "Kurt, now is not the time to throw a tantrum. That is my solo for a reason, and I'm keeping it. Attempting to hold it ransom is childish."

"Well, then …. Enjoy having two solos. I wonder how _Paradise_ will sound with you singing both parts. Not great, I'd imagine. Oh. And weren't you planning on a trip to Nationals getting you into NYADA?"

Rachel's eyes widen dramatically. She looks shocked and outraged. "I can't believe everyone thinks you're so good and nice and honest," she cries. She blinks away crocodile tears that make Kurt roll his eyes. "Fine. You can have _Defying Gravity_ as long as I have a duet partner for _Paradise_."

"Deal."

Kurt sends a text, and five minutes later, Finn bumbles into the green room. He casts his eyes around the glee club staring at him blankly until he finds Kurt.

"Uh … you need me to sing something?"

Kurt leads Finn over to Ms. Corcoran.

"Do you think we have any spare costumes in his size?"

Ms. Corcoran stares for a pregnant moment, and then walks away with her hands thrown into the air. She murmurs, "I'm as fired as Schuester" and leaves her students to sort out the giant mess they've made of Regionals however they want to.

Rachel instantly starts fussing over Finn, which keeps them both occupied enough for Kurt and the girls to huddle close and whisper their concerns to each other.

The fact that Blaine didn't show up at school is troubling, but more concerning is that Kurt knows he woke up on time. As they parade down the corridors to the music room where their accompanist, Brad, waits at the piano and the band tunes their instruments, Kurt scrolls through his text messages with Blaine. The last one he'd received was at 5:30 this morning.

_On my way._

"What the hell happened between his house and school?" Santana asks for the hundredth time.

Their first instinct had been to assume car trouble. When they'd told Ms. Corcoran about the text, she'd ordered the bus driver to take a circuitous route to Blaine's house to see if he was waiting along the street somewhere, but neither he nor his car were anywhere. Their teacher, and maybe most of glee club, assumed first time soloist nerves had gotten the best of him, but his friends knew better.

"It had to have been Roz," Santana mutters.

Rachel herds everyone onto the risers, but Santana shakes her head and backs up towards the door. Kurt and Tina catch her by the arms before she can bolt.

"No. Don't even try to talk to me. I'm not staying here and prancing around on stage while my brother is at the mercy of some heartless bitch hell-bent on getting her face on the _National Inquirer_. He's in trouble. I can feel it in my bones."

Kurt hesitates, but says, "So can I."

That decides it. They're going after Blaine, Regionals solos or no. Tina barely manages to dodge in front of them and bodily block their exit. She wedges her arms and legs awkwardly in the door frame so they can't slip past her.

"Wait," she commands. "I don't have the emotional connection to Blaine that you two do, so I'm going to go with your intuition, but …. Guys, you always do this. You two get an idea in your head and go off half-cocked and land in trouble. Think about where that's gotten us."

"We can't –"

"I'm not sitting –"

Tina flicks her wrists and flashes both palms at Kurt and Santana. To her amazement, they both stop talking immediately.

"Obviously, we have to go after Blaine. But not all of us. You two are featured soloists, and so is Blaine. If you all disappear before a major performance, that will raise some serious red flags, and we already have enough people watching us. You two stay here and perform." They start to protest, and Tina raises her palms again. "I'll go after Blaine."

"No way. It's too dangerous."

Tina gapes at her girlfriend. It's a gesture so similar to Santana's exaggerated incredulity that she must have picked it up from spending so much time together.

"And how it is any less dangerous for you, an alien, to go looking for an alien hunter? Just …" Tina waves her hands around, as if to say she's so over these arguments. "It's my turn to shine. I might not get any solos in glee club, and I might not have the visions that uncover the mysteries of your alien past, but if there's one thing I can do, it's take care of my friends. So you two get on those risers, kill your solos, and let me worry about the important stuff today."

Kurt and Santana stare open-mouthed.

"Now!"

They start and scurry over to the risers, exchanging unsettled glances as they take their places. Tina pretends to join the group.

Tina's hand shoots into the air. She says in a clipped, curt tone, "Ms. Corcoran, excuse me, if I may. I've been thinking, and I don't think it's fair that I don't have a solo. You asked Blaine, Santana, Kurt, and I to join Vocal Adrenaline after Jesse stupidly hurt himself, and they all have solos, but I don't. Since we're rearranging numbers at the eleventh hour anyway, I'd like one."

"But, Tina," Rachel sputters. "There are no more solos. Kurt has _Defying Gravity_, Santana has _Valerie_, and Blaine and I – or Finn and I – have _Paradise by the Dashboard Light_. We're only allowed three songs."

"I know," Tina says happily. "I want your solo."

Glee club, the band, Brad, and Ms. Corcoran go silent. They stare at Tina. It takes Rachel a moment to recover.

"I've been more than generous with my solos for this competition," Rachel replies.

"Then this one will make up for the solos you hogged in every other competition when we were both in glee club together."

"No!" Rachel cries. "No, Tina. You have to harmonize with me and sway behind me on _Paradise_. If you're not there, we'll have an odd number of dancers and it will be unbalanced."

"Unbalanced? The number of solos you've had is unbalanced. Ms. Corcoran, I want a solo or I want out of this club."

"You're being unreasonable," Rachel cries.

"What I'm being is assertive, just like you, Rachel. The only difference is, I'm willing to be a team player too. Until Vocal Adrenaline is a team and not just a temple for St. Berry worship, I have no interest in being part of this glee club."

Tina storms out in spectacular fashion. She keeps up appearances by stomping around the corner and almost runs into a boy in a navy and red blazer. She jumps back and clutches her chest in surprise.

"Oh! Sorry."

She hasn't seen the tall Warbler before the few times they've met up with Wes after school, but she doesn't like the way he looks at her. She feels like she has no secrets, like he's inside her head rooting around through every thought she has.

"No problem," he says finally. "I wouldn't want to take out the competition before we're on stage."

He has an oily voice that makes her skin crawl. She has to talk to Wes about the creepers that he accepts into the Warblers. But, at this very moment, she needs to find Blaine. She puts the new Warbler out of her head and makes for the parking lot where she finds Carole Hudson's car and unlocks it with the keys Kurt lifted from his dad's girlfriend. It's a white Acura: reliable, not flashy, and mostly importantly, full of gas.

She dials Blaine's phone one more time as she turns onto the highway. It rings to voicemail. "Blaine, it's Tina again. I'm coming to find you."

* * *

**VENDETTA**

At 5:30 in the morning, Blaine sends a text to Kurt as he climbs into his car and turns the key in the ignition. The sun hasn't started its ascent this morning, and he feels the winter morning seeping into his skin. He tightens his scarf – a Christmas present from Kurt – and cranks up the heater for his drive to school. He hums along with the radio as he turns onto Main Street just so that if Rachel demands a sing-along on the way to Bitter Lake, she doesn't hear her duet partner's croaky morning voice.

Headlights cut through the darkness and illuminate a car parked on the side of the road with the hood up. Blaine slows to a stop on the shoulder and hops out of his car. A woman's voice colorfully curses foreign-made cars.

"Excuse me? Do you need some help?"

A head pops up over the hood, and Blaine feels his stomach drop. It's Roz Washington. Of course that's just his luck. He tries to be helpful, and he ends up offering assistance to the one person in Roswell who definitely wants him dead (although Sheriff Sylvester is a close second).

"I need a damn mechanic," Roz thunders. "Unless you got a pair of coveralls under that Brooks Brothers coat and pashmina, I'll have to settle for using your cell phone. 'Cause that's just luck, ain't it? The day my damn foreign car breaks down, I forget my damn foreign cell phone."

Blaine wordlessly hands over his phone with an extra flourish, as if to say she's welcome to it. As long as she keeps her anger turned on her vehicle and not the alien in her presence, she can use all of his minutes and he won't complain.

"Oh, okay," Roz calls to the sky. "Now this is a damn conspiracy. Your cell phone ain't working," she tells Blaine.

"What?"

His phone is brand new, and he just sent a text to Kurt. He wonders if Kurt even saw the message that he was on his way. As many buttons as he pushes and as many times as he removes the battery, he can't get his phone to read the SIM card.

"Great," Blaine sighs. "I'm the only person in the world Siri has betrayed."

He pockets the worthless phone. When he looks up, Roz smiles ironically and shakes her head.

"At least when Siri takes over the damn world, you'll have a fighting chance." He cracks a smile. "It just ain't our morning, is it? I guess I should start hoofing it. There's a body shop about a block up, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't think they open for a few hours anyway."

"And my good luck just keeps on coming."

"I can take you back to your hotel … or wherever you're staying."

She shakes her head. "I just checked out this morning. I have an appointment to go to in Bitter Lake."

"That's where I'll be today," Blaine says. "My glee club is performing at Regionals."

That reminds him to check the time. His watch reads 5:55. Roz must read the panic on his face, because she shoos him back to his car.

"Go on. I've managed all my life on my own. I can take care of myself today."

She leans over the engine again. Blaine hesitates.

"The bus is already gone. Vocal Adrenaline waits for no one. Since I guess I'm driving myself to Bitter Lake, I could give you a ride. It's no trouble."

Roz considers him for a long moment.

"That's very decent of you."

"My parents raised me right," he answers with a grin.

He misses the smile dropping from the corners of Roz's mouth and her snarl as she ducks into the passenger seat of his Corvette.

Blaine shifts into drive and turns sharply right at the next intersection. If he's driving himself to Bitter Lake, going by the school is out of the way. He wishes he had some way to call Ms. Corcoran, or at least one of his friends, but he'll just have to explain when he gets to Bitter Lake High School.

The sun begins its slow climb over the desert as Blaine merges onto 70 North. The pale purple and pink light paints the desert and distant mesa in pastel hues. Roz hums in appreciation as she peers out the window.

"Beautiful country, don't you think? Especially at sunrise."

"Absolutely."

Roz stays silent for a few moments, just soaking up the picturesque desert on both sides of the highway. Johnny Cash sings from the speakers, and something about the song sparks a change in her posture. She doesn't look away from the vista when she speaks again.

"My husband Harold and me liked to slip away sometimes. We'd come out here and just drive. There's nothing like flying down the highway next to the man you love. Of course, it has to be the right one. You know how you know that?" It's rhetorical, so Blaine doesn't answer. "The kiss, of course. You know the expression 'I saw fireworks'? With Harold it was like the Fourth of July."

The nostalgia in her voice touches a place deep inside Blaine. It's the voice he's imagined himself using in fifty years when he talks about Kurt.

"You ever experienced that when you kissed a boy?"

Blaine doesn't question how she knows he's gay. Probably she picked up on the signals when she saw him and Kurt together at the Crashdown.

"Yes. Once."

Roz nods, as if his answer confirms something for her.

"It was our first anniversary. I had a surprise for him, and he had one for me. He spent his whole paycheck on some fireworks we were gonna set off in the desert. But that fool –" the nostalgia in her voice sounds more painful than wistful now, and it puts a pit in Blaine's stomach "– he was always forgetting stuff. That night, it was matches. He was so damned proud, he didn't want to ask me to spare a few dollars for a lighter, but I made him pull into Pepper's Cafe. But you know that, don't you?"

Blaine does a double take, caught off guard. "Sorry?"

"Pull over right here. I want to show you something."

Blaine slows and pulls into an abandoned roadside café next to a gas station. It sits on a cliff overlooking the desert. From inside, it must have a spectacular view. In the distance, three spires of rock reach up for the sky. The dawn paints them brilliant orange, and they seem more like fingers in a nebula cloud than rock.

Roz climbs out of the car, and baffled, Blaine follows. He can practically hear the ticking of his watch telling him he's behind schedule, but her behavior is too bizarre and her story too significant to ignore.

"Recognize it?" Roz asks.

"I'm sorry. I don't understand. I've never been here."

She doesn't respond. She has more story to tell him.

"I went into this convenience store for a lighter. The girl behind the desk asked me what brand of cigarette I wanted. So I told her, this ain't for smoking; this is for fireworks. She said, 'Have a good time.'"

"I'm not following you, Ms. Washington."

For the first time, Roz doesn't sound angry or bitter at all. Her voice is pure anguish that rips at Blaine's heart.

"I didn't have a good time. Not that night. Not any night since. He never did get my surprise." She sighs, and Blaine thinks he hears tears clogged in her throat. "I was pregnant. Do you know what the murder of your baby's father and the love of your life does to your body? Three innocent people lost their lives that night: my husband, my baby, and me. Dead woman walking. That's how I've felt all these years. Only thing that kept me alive was you."

Blaine can't find words. He feels her pain at losing her husband and child keenly, but he's so confused. It's the kind of confusion that borders on fear, when the reality of a situation becomes too unsettling to reconcile anymore and the flight instinct kicks in.

"Me? But I don't know you."

"No." Her voice quivers with rage. "But I know you."

Roz reaches into her jacket and pulls out a small black handgun. Blaine flinches away from the weapon on instinct, but she keeps it trained on him. Her arm is steady, and cold fire burns in her eyes. Blaine has no doubt that if she squeezes the trigger, she'll hit his heart. He puts his palms out, hoping the universal – and that might be darkly comedic if his life didn't hang in the balance – symbol of peace will calm her down.

"I know how you can change your face," she says coldly. "You're a shapeshifter because you're always running. You killed my husband to get his car. What were you running from then? Did someone else find out your secret?"

Blaine's heart hammers in his chest. She's insane and she's an alien hunter. He's never been in so much danger in this life, and that includes when Ms. Holliday was watching him. The barrel at the end of the gun leads to his death. He can't find the words for several moments, and even when he does, his voice shakes with fear.

"You're wrong. I didn't kill your husband. I wouldn't kill anyone."

"Sue told me about you healing your boyfriend and the handprint on his stomach just like they found on my husband's body."

"I am not him," Blaine insists. "Whoever you think I am. I am not him."

An engine roars up the highway, and tires squeal as the driver slams on the brakes. A white sedan skids to a stop in the parking lot ruined by weeds growing up through the cracks. Tina jumps out of the car, sees the gun, and stumbles backwards. The unexpected appearance of someone – one of Blaine's friends – distracts Roz. She turns halfway to Tina, and Blaine takes the only opportunity he'll get.

He runs and lunges at Roz. He's so much smaller than her, but he has momentum. They fall to the unforgiving ground. The impact shocks Roz and dislodges the gun from her hand. It bounces a few inches away from her hand, and they wrestle for it. When she gets too close to the gun, he uses his powers to send it skidding further away. But in the end, her vendetta burns too hotly to be defeated.

Roz lays on the ground, both hands on the gun pointing at Blaine. He freezes midway to his feet so that he's crouched slightly with his palms out to her, almost like he's backing away from a dog upset that it had been petted. Tina observes with her hands over her mouth and tears in her eyes. She starts forward twice, but Blaine's infinitesimal headshake keeps her silent and out of the line of fire.

"I am not him," Blaine repeats softly.

A second car screeches to a halt in the parking lot. Sheriff Sylvester leaps out of her car before it's fully in park. The car lurches and rocks as she pulls out her gun and trains it on Roz.

"Drop the gun, Washington!"

"It's him!" Roz yells. She struggles to her feet without letting her aim waver from Blaine's chest. "He used his powers on me. We have to stop him, Sue!"

"I don't know what she's talking about!" Blaine pleads with the Sheriff.

"Drop it!" Sheriff Sylvester bellows.

"This son of a bitch is gonna die today and ain't nothing gonna stop me, so you unload every bullet in your chamber, Sue Sylvester, but I'm killing this bastard!"

Roz cocks the hammer.

A deafening bang echoes off the rock formations in the canyon.

"It only takes one," Sheriff Sylvester says sadly.

Blaine isn't sure what happened until Tina has her arms around him and hauls him away from the two women in the center of the parking lot. Then he sees the pool of blood around Roz. Lines of stress and grief form around the Sheriff's eyes. She sighs deeply and holsters her weapon. When she stands up, Blaine catches a glimpse of Roz's wide, sightless eyes. His stomach revolts, and he swallows thickly. The Sheriff turns to the teenagers.

"I didn't know this was going to happen." She sounds lost. "I didn't know she was this dangerous."

A spike of anger rips through Blaine, and he pulls away from Tina. She clutches at his coat and refuses to let him go. She follows closely, her fingers twisting and gripping the material.

"What did you tell her?" he yells. Even to his own ears, he sounds desperate, wild, inconsolable. "Why did she come after me? You're the Sheriff. You're supposed to protect me, but all you've ever done is come after me. You want me? Come on, here I am! Take me!"

He holds out his wrists, as if for her to cuff him. Then he thinks better of it. He opens his coat, exposes his chest as a target. She flinches. Her hand moves farther away from the gun at her hip.

"Get out of here," she says. "Both of you. You were never here."

Tina pulls on Blaine's coat hard. He stumbles backwards and lets her maneuver him to his car.

In the background, he hears, "This is Sheriff Sylvester. I've been involved in a Code 4. One man down. My 10-20 is the abandoned Pepper's Café in Bitter Lake."

Blaine doesn't know why he follows Tina towards Bitter Lake, but he thinks maybe that's what she told him to do before she left him. There's so much adrenaline flooding this system he can't think straight, and he knows he shouldn't be driving. He's grateful when Tina pulls over at a viewpoint. She jumps out of the car and races back towards him. She flings herself at him and wraps her arms around his neck. The force of impact knocks Blaine over, and they lay awkwardly half sitting, half laying in the rust red dirt until Tina has her sobs under control.

They dust themselves off, and Tina dries her eyes with a tissue. She hands one to Blaine, but he doesn't think he's been crying. She takes it from him and dabs at his cheeks. They sit on the low rock wall overlooking the canyon, and in the distance, sunlight sparkles off the waters of Bitter Lake.

Tina takes out her phone and makes a call. Blaine can hear Kurt's voice on the other end. He reacts to Tina's cryptic summary as well as can be expected which is to say that he yells a lot and demands real answers. Tina refuses and says they'll all talk once they're back in Roswell tonight.

While she's on the phone, Blaine pops open the back of his iPhone and inspects the SIM card. He hadn't noticed in the morning darkness, but the card is upside down. As soon as he rights it, his phone picks up a strong signal. The missed calls and texts pile up in his notifications.

Tina hangs up the phone. "Vocal Adrenaline won first place. They're going to Nationals in New York. Not that that's at all important."

"No, it is," Blaine says. "It's a little bit of normal on a really terrible day."

She scoots closer and wraps her arm around Blaine's shoulders. She can tell something weighs heavily on his mind, and she thinks she knows what it is.

"She was crazy, Blaine. She had no idea what she was talking about."

"I don't think so, Tina. I think the Stranger has killed a lot more than the one person we know about."

ooo

Late that evening, when the bus pulls into the parking lot at West Roswell High School with a jubilant glee club on board, Kurt bounces off the steps to find Blaine waiting with a bouquet of flowers.

"For the featured soloist," he says sweetly.

Kurt, who doesn't know yet what happened out in the desert, accepts them and sniffs the flowers with a shy smile. When he sees the cuts on Blaine's arm from the scuffle on the ground – cuts he could have healed, but Tina talked him out of it because he would need proof of an accident to be allowed to stay in Vocal Adrenaline – his smile falters.

"We're in more danger than we've ever been in," Kurt says.

It's not a question.


End file.
